The London Cleopatra’s Needle – having survived a deadly and storm-thrashed sea journey – has indeed accrued the most macabre legends. There are claims that Cleopatra’s Needle emits an occult power that encourages passers-by to fling themselves into the Thames. As well as being a favoured spot for suicides, this allegedly cursed artefact is said to contain the spirit of an Egyptian pharaoh and to have been the focus of a magical ritual by Aleister Crowley. The homeless and destitute who congregate on the Embankment will go nowhere near it, mocking laughter is said to echo over the water at night, and a character with scaly skin and a tall headdress has been seen diving into the Thames beside it without causing a ripple or splash.

Cleopatra’s Needle in London towers beside the Thames (Photo: Mrs Ellacott)

Cleopatra’s Needle in New York was the focus of rituals involving thousands of Freemasons. Hauled across the Atlantic and dragged through the city thanks to the most remarkable feats of engineering – and thanks to the interventions of America’s richest man – the needle is said to stand in a weird Masonic alignment with New York’s other obelisks. The London Cleopatra’s Needle, it’s claimed, is also positioned as part of a network of occult sites – arranged in the shape of a pentagram some reckon, as a diagram of the eye of the Egyptian god Horus insist others.

Cleopatra’s Needle in New York City’s Central Park (Photo: Ingfbruno)

Below is a story of colonial competition, of the jostling of rising and falling empires. It’s a tale of Masonic schemes to transmit age-old messages encoded in hieroglyphs; an account of eerie time capsules, World War I bombs, the spirits of dead sailors, and outpourings of dark energy said to have influenced none other than Jack the Ripper. It’s a story of how Cleopatra’s Needles crossed seas and oceans and how they continue to assert their weird and baleful power upon our minds even today.

The Early History of Cleopatra’s Needles – Sun Gods, Huge Granite Columns and Cleopatra’s Roman Lovers

Around 1450 BC, Pharaoh Thutmose III decided to commemorate his 30 years on the throne by ordering two obelisks to be sculpted from enormous, single blocks of red granite. These blocks were quarried at Aswan – close to the Nile’s first cataract – then somehow transported over 500 miles to Heliopolis, which now lies in the northern suburbs of Cairo. Though the Nile was definitely involved in moving these massive monuments, no one is quite sure how Thutmose managed to shift them over such a long distance. Thutmose had hieroglyphs inscribed in a single column on each of the four sides of Cleopatra’s Needles and the obelisks were then erected outside a temple to the sun, with each guarding one side of its gateway. (In Ancient Egypt, obelisks symbolised the rays of the sun god Aten-Ra.) Around two centuries after Thutmose had set the obelisks up, Pharaoh Ramesses II added more hieroglyphs to celebrate his military triumphs – arranging his text in two columns running down the obelisks’ sides, flanking Thutmose’s carvings.

The obelisks remained outside the temple of the sun for more than 1,400 years, although at some point they seem to have toppled over and lain buried in sand for half-a-century. In 12 BC, the Romans moved them over the-not-inconsiderable distance of 130 miles to Alexandria. (Again, the Nile was involved and – again – we don’t know exactly how they did it.) There they were erected outside the Caesareum – a temple built by Cleopatra in homage to her Roman lovers Julius Caesar and Mark Antony. (Hence, the obelisks’ connection with Egypt’s most famous – and last – pharaoh.) The monuments stayed at the Caesareum for almost two millennia, but the obelisk that would become the London Cleopatra’s Needle once again tipped over and was covered by sand. This turned out to be fortunate as it meant its hieroglyphs were protected from the eroding effects of the desert’s sand-blasting storms. But the ambitions of new and rising empires meant the long stay of Cleopatra’s Needles outside the Caesareum would not prove permanent.

A sketch of the ruins of the Caesareum from 1798. The Cleopatra’s Needle that ended up in New York City is upright. The London obelisk can be made out in the foreground, mostly buried in sand.

Cleopatra’s Needle Is Readied for Transport to London – Battles, Egyptomania, Rival Obelisks and the Beginnings of ‘the Curse’

In 1798, Napolean launched an invasion of Egypt, an act that began decades of struggles for control of the country between the British, the French, the fading Ottoman Empire that had ruled Egypt for centuries, and Egyptian leaders who wanted to establish a powerful independent state with colonial territories of its own. These conflicts would involve battles, revolts and diplomatic manoeuvrings. Additionally, when Napolean invaded Egypt, he brought with him around 160 ‘savants’ – scholars, linguists, archaeologists and scientists – to investigate that intriguing land of temples, statues and tombs. There were also around 2000 artists and engravers, who created images of these monuments. As the research of the savants and the sketches of the artists filtered back to Europe, they sparked a phenomenon known as Egyptomania, in which the continent went mad for all things Ancient Egypt. Egyptian designs influenced furniture and jewellery, Egyptian themes cropped up in novels and plays, and pyramid-shaped mausoleums appeared in Europe’s graveyards. Egyptomania also led to an enthusiasm for real Egyptian objects, with mummies, artefacts and even obelisks ‘acquired’ from the country. It’s against this backdrop of colonial power struggles and Egyptomania that the story of Cleopatra’s Needle plays out.

In 1819, the viceroy and de facto ruler of Egypt and Sudan – an Albanian named Mohammed Ali, who’d wrested significant power from the Ottomans – bestowed (the reclining) Cleopatra’s Needle on the British as a diplomatic gift. This present was intended to celebrate British triumphs over the French at the Battle of the Nile (courtesy of Lord Nelson) and the Battle of Alexandria (under Sir Ralph Abercromby). The prime minister, Lord Liverpool, expressed gratitude for the gift, but the Brits were faced with the problem of how on earth to transport the 224-ton, 69-foot megalith the 3880 nautical miles to England. With no solutions becoming apparent, the obelisk was allowed to stay in its age-old position in the Caesareum’s ruins. As time drifted on, however, certain people in the British establishment became increasingly unhappy at the thought of such a prestigious monument lying unappreciated under its centuries of sand.

Coloured photograph of Sir James Edward Alexander in 1860. Some years later he would strive to bring Cleopatra’s Needle to London.

In 1867, General Sir James Edward Alexander – a Scottish writer, traveller, soldier and Egypt enthusiast – visited Paris, where his competitive instincts were inflamed by his observation that the French already possessed an Egyptian obelisk. In the Place de la Concorde, there towered a magnificent, yellow-granite, 75-foot monolith, boasting a weight of over 250 tons. This obelisk – from Luxor – had been gifted by Muhammed Ali in 1833, possibly as part of a strategy of using Egypt’s wealth of ancient artefacts to play Egypt-obsessed European nations off against each other. Tolerating far less delay and dithering than the British, the French had shipped their megalith home and had unveiled it in October 1836 in a ceremony officiated by King Louis Phillipe in front of 200,000 people.

The Luxor obelisk in the Place de la Concorde, Paris (Photo: Craig Booth)

Alexander was determined that London should have an obelisk to match the one reared up in Paris. Accompanied by the British Consul General Edward Stanton, Alexander met the Khedive of Egypt, Isma’il Pasha. Isma’il was a visionary leader, but – under his ambitious rule – Egypt had slid into debt. Modernisation programmes – encouraging industrialisation, urbanisation, agricultural improvement and the expansion of education – as well as costly wars with Ethiopia had bankrupted the treasury. The European powers had used these pressures to wring concessions from Isma’il Pasha, with the British and French assuming control of most of Egypt’s finances and acquiring Egypt’s shares in the Suez Canal. Against such a background, it’s likely that Isma’il felt he had little choice but to go along with Alexander’s determination to get Cleopatra’s Needle out of Egypt. Incidentally, if Cleopatra’s Needle is cursed, Isma’il Pasha may have been one of its first victims. He would be swiftly removed from power – at France and Britain’s behest – in 1879. He went into exile, eventually being offered sanctuary by the Ottomans, where he ended up virtually a state prisoner in an Istanbul palace beside the Bosphorus. He died in 1895, due to – according to Time magazine – the effects of trying to down two bottles of champagne in one swig.

Isma’il Pasha, the Khedive of Egypt and Sudan. Was he the first victim of Cleopatra’s Needle’s curse?

Alexander now needed to work out a way to shift the colossal obelisk and to find the money to fund its voyage. Help for both these matters came through a friend, a stupendously wealthy surgeon, dermatologist and – yes – fellow Egypt nut called Sir William James Erasmus Wilson. In 1877, Wilson agreed to contribute the massive sum of £10,000 (almost one million in modern money) to finance the monolith’s journey. While trying to figure out how this journey would be accomplished, Wilson turned to a friend: a locomotive and railroad engineer and – again – Egypt obsessive named Mathew William Simpson. Simpson, who worked for the Khedive, came up with the idea of digging the obelisk out of the sand then cocooning it in an iron tube, 16 feet wide and 92 feet long. The plan was that, once constructed, this cocoon would become a cylinder-shaped boat, named the Cleopatra. The Cleopatra would be tugged by a steamship – the Olga – all the way to England.

1830s lithograph of the Caesareum. The New York Cleopatra’s Needle stands in the background while the London needle is partly buried in sand.

As Simpson – due to his obligations to the Khedive – was unable to devote himself to the work, he recruited another engineer – John Dixon – to finish off the design. John kitted out the Cleopatra with a rudder, keels, mast, bridge and cabin. He had the Cleopatra built in pieces in England, at the Thames Iron Works. These pieces were shipped out to Egypt then fitted around the obelisk under the direction of Waynam Dixon, John’s brother. Finally, the Cleopatra was ready for its journey, waiting to be hooked up to the Olga, which would be under the command of one Captain Booth. At this point – it seems – the obelisk was ready to show its fury and discomfort at being hauled away from its native land.

Ferocious Storms, Death at Sea and a Strange Time Capsule – Cleopatra’s Needle’s ‘Cursed’ Voyage to London

The strange procession of the Olga and Cleopatra – with the latter commanded by one Captain Carter and crewed by Maltese mariners – sailed through the Mediterranean with little incident. But as the ships were passing through the notoriously temperamental Bay of Biscay, an incredible storm blew up. With the rain smashing down, the wind battering the boats and the waves unrelenting and mountainous, Captain Booth became convinced the Cleopatra would sink, taking the Olga down with it. He decided to attempt a rescue of the Cleopatra’s crew before cutting the ropes and letting Cleopatra’s Needle drop to the ocean bed in its metal sarcophagus. A smaller boat, manned by six sailors, set out from the Olga to pick up the Cleopatra’s men. However, the raging sea overwhelmed the smaller boat and its sailors were lost. Eventually, the Olga managed to draw up alongside the Cleopatra and save its five crew members. Captain Booth then ordered the tow ropes cut and the Cleopatra was carried away on the waves, with all those present assuming the tubelike ship with its cursed cargo would sink. Five days later, however, a Spanish fishing craft spotted an odd-looking boat bobbing on the now-much-calmer sea. It was the Cleopatra, miraculously undamaged. Mathew Simpson’s innovative design had somehow survived all the Bay of Biscay could hurl at it. A Glasgow steamer – the Fitzmaurice – towed the Cleopatra to the northern Spanish port of Ferrol. The Anglia – a paddle tug – was then sent to haul the Cleopatra to Britain.

Cleopatra’s Needle Being Brought to England, by George Knight, 1877. The Olga and Cleopatra are depicted struggling in rough seas.

On 21st  January, 1878, the ships reached the Thames. Shoreside crowds clapped and cheered, cannons fired salutes and all the schoolchildren in the estuary town of Gravesend were given the day off. There was some debate about where Cleopatra’s Needle would go – a wooden model of the monolith had previously been put up outside the Houses of Parliament, but this location was deemed unsuitable. Eventually, the Embankment was chosen – the curious decision being made to erect an archaic monument on a symbol of modernity and progress: the elegant riverside walkway had recently been constructed to conceal an enormous sewer, the central part of an innovative underground network devised by Joseph Bazalgette. On 12th September 1878, Cleopatra’s Needle was hoisted into position. Two Victorian sphinxes – designed by English architect George John Vulliamy – were set up on each side of the obelisk, facing inwards towards it (more on this strange orientation below). The Embankment was also lined with Egyptian-style benches, boasting camels and winged sphinxes as part of their metalwork.

An illustration from the journal ‘Engineering’ showing Cleopatra’s Needle being erected on London’s Embankment

As the obelisk was lowered into place, a time capsule was entombed beneath it. The capsule’s contents could hardly have been more Victorian. It contained a gentleman’s lounge suit and 10 illustrated newspapers, including that day’s edition of The Times. The capsule also held Bradshaw’s Railway Guide (again, a thrusting achievement of Victorian progress), an assortment of women’s dresses and cosmetics, Queen Victoria’s portrait, children’s toys, Bibles, collections of coins, a razor (more on this later), and 12 photographs of what were considered exceptionally beautiful women (these pictures are said to have been chosen by Captain Carter). Other items included a baby’s bottle, some of the cables that had hauled Cleopatra’s Needle upright, a map of London, an account of the monument’s dramatic journey to England, a three-inch bronze miniature of the obelisk, a box of cigars and a selection of hairpins. As we shall see, certain elements of this ensemble have helped fuel the mythos of a haunted Egyptian megalith and its occult influence on the darker side of life in the capital.

The Creepy Mythology of Cleopatra’s Needle – Strange Beings, Eerie Laughter, Weird Alignments, Jack the Ripper and Aleister Crowley

A certain amount of paranormal lore is associated with Cleopatra’s Needle in London. Such lore has cropped up in ghost anthologies, on websites, and in literature, poetry and film. It is, indeed, sometimes difficult to separate what might be considered ‘genuine folklore’ from internet memes and the outpourings of artistic imaginations, but this section will attempt some sort of summary of the notions that have grown up around London’s ancient obelisk.

Perhaps the most famous piece of folklore linked to Cleopatra’s Needle is chronicled in the book Haunted Waters (1957) by the ghost-hunter Elliott O’Donnell. O’Donnell starts his tome by claiming: “I have often felt when in proximity to some rivers and pools as if the water possessed a strange, magnetic influence and attraction, as well as sensing the presence of a spirit, sometimes friendly and sometimes evil and inimical.” He feels this is especially true of the Thames, which “should assuredly be haunted, for no river in Great Britain has witnessed more murders and suicides.” O’Donnell recounts how, in the early 1890s, he would wander along the Embankment and chat to “the wretched down-and-outs, homeless and hopeless” who could be found “on nearly every seat.” Some of these homeless people confided that “they had felt a ghostly presence, urging them to end their miserable existence by jumping into the river.” O’Donnell goes on to say that the “spot where Cleopatra’s Needle stands was well-know to be haunted. None of the outcasts would venture near it. Two of them told me that one night they saw a tall, nude, shadowy figure, with a peak-shaped head and a body covered with what looked like scales, suddenly appear by the needle, wave a long arm at them and leap over the wall into the river. They said that they sometimes heard unearthly groans and hellish, mocking laughter in the river.”

According to the folklorist Steve Roud in his London Lore, a peculiar London myth concerns the siting of the sphinxes at the needle’s base. The two Victorian sphinxes – decorated with hieroglyphic inscriptions reading “the good god, Thuthmosis III given life” – are facing inwards towards the needle, rather than outwards as they would have been in Egypt. It is a widespread belief, Roud states, that they were “positioned inwards to protect London from its occult power”. If there’s any truth in this legend, the other folklore linked to Cleopatra’s Needle would suggest this precaution hasn’t worked.

In London, Cleopatra’s Needle is flanked by two Victorian sphinxes – were they positioned facing inwards to contain its occult power? (Photo: DaringDonna)

London legend states the monument is a popular location for suicides. Twice, apparently, policemen were approached by an agitated woman claiming someone was about to leap in the river. The officers ran towards the obelisk, only to see the very same woman plunge into the water. It’s also claimed that the apparition of the naked diving man began appearing shortly after Cleopatra’s Needle was set up and that it is in fact the spirit of one of the sailors who perished in the Bay of Biscay. Unearthly screams heard around the monument are said to issue from the lost sailors. An inscription on the needle’s pedestal commemorates the seafarers who drowned.

One of the large Victorian sphinxes positioned on either side of Cleopatra’s Needle, London. (Photo: Colin Smith)

An even more outlandish legend insists that the spirit of Rameses II is trapped inside the obelisk and that this has meant a powerful curse has been placed on London. This assertion is linked to the infamous British magician Aleister Crowley. Allegedly, one night, Crowley conducted a ritual to liberate the soul of Rameses. The ceremony involved the feeding of animal blood to a human skeleton. I’m not sure how Crowley would have got away with dragging a skeleton through the capital’s streets or how a skeleton could be fed with anything, but Crowley’s procedure is said to have failed. It’s claimed the laughter heard around the obelisk is Rameses mocking Crowley’s attempt.

Another tale attests that in 1880 a young woman, Mrs Davis, was walking along the Embankment when she felt herself pulled against her will towards Cleopatra’s Needle. As the force dragged her closer, terrifying laughter rang out, she lost all control over her legs and hurled herself into the Thames. A vagrant rescued her, but while recovering in hospital she suffered nightmares in which she was tormented by a tall red-robed woman with black almond-shaped eyes. The woman would open her mouth, exposing fang-like teeth, before the skin and flesh were torn from her face. Another incident some claim was caused by the obelisk’s curse is easier to verify. During World War I, a bomb exploded close to Cleopatra’s Needle, with its shrapnel pitting the plinth and scarring one of the sphinxes. Following the War, this damage wasn’t mended. It was felt the scars were part of the obelisk’s story and – some would say – evidence of its curse.

Hieroglyphs on Cleopatra’s Needle. Does this London obelisk imprison the spirit of a pharaoh? (Photo: Man vyi)

A curious piece of lore relates to the time capsule embedded beneath Cleopatra’s Needle. Among other objects, it contains – if you recall – pictures of attractive women and a razor. It’s been asserted that the positioning of these items under the occult monolith sent waves of evil energy into the capital that encouraged the crimes of Jack the Ripper. While such a notion might seem far-fetched, the obelisk has made it into artistic depictions of this sinister episode in London’s history. In Alan Moore’s graphic novel From Hell, Jack the Ripper is Dr William Gull, a high-ranking Freemason and physician to the Royal Family. Gull states: “Few symbols match this stone in its potency … carved fifteen hundred years before Christ’s birth and raised at Heliopolis by Thotmes, etched with hieroglyphic prayers that Atum, Egypt’s Sun god, might increase his sovereignty.” Gull also remarks on the “Daguerrotypes of our epoch’s most lovely women … and a razor”. Gull places the needle within a pattern of sites around the capital charged with dark mystical energy. The Ripper argues that if one were to draw lines connecting such sites – which include Hawksmoor churches (some boasting their own obelisks), Daniel Defoe’s obelisk tomb in Bunhill fields, the Tower of London with its macabre history and St Paul’s (apparently, previously, a temple of Diana) – they would make up a … pentagram. The film version of From Hell (2001) has Ian Holme, as the Ripper, informing a victim in his coach about the six men who died bringing the obelisk from Egypt before murdering her. 

Indeed, a number of writers and psychogeographers have embedded the needle as a central point in London networks of occult power. In his poetry collection Lud Heat, Iain Sinclair positions the needle as part of an arrangement of burial grounds, sacred hills, suicide ponds and Hawksmoor churches. (Nicholas Hawksmoor, nicknamed ‘the Devil’s architect’, was a Freemason fond of decorating his churches with ‘pagan’ symbols such as pyramids, mausoleums and – yes – obelisks.) The lines linking these sites form several shapes, including a triangle (or, if you like, a pyramid), a pentagram and a diagrammatic representation of the eye of the Egyptian god Horus. Sinclair writes, “There is a subsystem of fire obelisks: St Luke, Old Street, and St John, Horsleydown. They form an equilateral triangle, raised over the water, with London’s true obelisk – ‘Cleopatra’s Needle’.”

Let’s now move on to consider the Cleopatra’s Needle in New York, which – as we shall see – is also not lacking in occult significance nor in theorists eager to place it within systems of dark power in that metropolis.

Egyptian-style benches on London’s Embankment – evidence of Egyptomania? (Photo: Robin Sones)

Cleopatra’s Needle Comes to New York – America’s Egyptomania, Nautical Adventurers, Cannonballs and Freemasons

In New York’s Central Park, behind the Metropolitan Museum of Art, stands an artefact that at first looks somewhat incongruous. On a hillock – known as Greywacke Knoll – is a red granite obelisk covered in faded hieroglyphs. Weighing in at 250 tons (even its pedestal weighs a hefty 50), the obelisk is officially the oldest outdoor manmade structure in New York. This object – forming a strange backdrop to the park’s lycra-clad traffic of cyclists and joggers – reaches a height of 68 feet. It would have appeared even more striking when first set up in 1880, when few buildings in New York were that tall.

The process by which this monument came to be in this location is a story that in some ways mirrors the transportation of its twin obelisk to London. For New York – and American society in general – was experiencing its own version of Egyptomania. Some of the city’s more outlandish tombs – and even some of its prisons – had been built with Egyptian-influenced designs. The 50-foot granite walls of the Croton Reservoir – completed in 1842 – had been constructed in an Egyptian style. Around 1878, when London claimed its obelisk, New York was mushrooming in size and gaining in importance, with the Industrial Revolution and immigration firing its growth. As the prime city of an ambitious emerging empire, New York felt it needed its very own artefact from an impressive empire of yore. And, as with the London needle, this would be achieved courtesy of a determined and obsessive military officer, his influential backers, a very rich patron, some astounding feats of engineering, and a daring voyage.

An 1842 Lithograph of the Croton Reservoir – a sign of New York City’s Egyptomania?

How this version of Cleopatra’s Needle came to be in New York is outlined in an excellent 2020 episode of the Bowery Boys podcast. The podcast tells us that procuring the obelisk became the passion project of several wealthy men, but it particularly came to motivate one Colonel Henry Honychurch Gorringe. Gorringe was an intriguing character, much of whose life was bound up with both mythology and the sea. As a boy, he was shipwrecked then rescued from the coast of India. He served in the Union Army during the Civil War and by the beginning of the 1870s had got a job at the US Hydrographic Office, in which he produced maps of coastlines and drew nautical charts. Gorringe had numerous adventures at sea and at one point became convinced he’d rediscovered the mythical land of Atlantis. In the mid-1870s, he ended up in Alexandria, where he first beheld the twin set of Cleopatra’s Needles at the Caesareum. Perhaps knowing the recumbent obelisk had been promised to the British, Gorringe started to form ideas regarding its still-upright sibling. He began to agitate for the up-and-coming nation of the USA to claim its own gargantuan Egyptian artefact.

Henry Honychurch Gorringe in 1883 – did he fall victim to the curse of Cleopatra’s Needle?

He was far from the only American with such an ambition. The country’s growing self-confidence and the liberal dose of Egyptomania the young nation had ingested had led many to a conviction that they must match their European rivals and show them that New York was truly one of the globe’s foremost cities. With more than a hint of sarcasm, one newspaper commented, “It would be absurd for the people of any great city to hope to be happy without an Egyptian obelisk. Rome has had them this great while and so has Constantinople. Paris has one; London has one. If New York was without one, all those great sites might point the finger of scorn at us and intimate that we could never rise to any real moral grandeur until we had our obelisk.”

Gorringe was a Freemason, and this too would motivate him to acquire one of the Cleopatra’s Needles for New York. The Freemasons – a mysterious and influential secret society – had begun as guilds of stonemasons who worked on medieval cathedrals. Freemasons tend to be fascinated by the doings of ancient civilisations, by arcane emblems, and by what one might call the occult. Hence, it’s unsurprising they’re keen on Ancient Egypt – the ancient civilisation par excellence, with its mysterious hieroglyphs, intriguing religion, and powerful magical and metaphysical traditions. Also, the Egyptians had been experts in architecture and working in stone. When examining Cleopatra’s Needle, Gorringe discovered what he thought were ancient Masonic signs and seems to have persuaded himself that these hieroglyphs were attempts of Ancient Egyptian Freemasons to send messages to the Masons of the future. Gorringe, therefore, became convinced he had to get the obelisk over to New York to make its teachings available to America’s Masons.

Gorringe teamed up with Elbert Farman – the US Consul to Egypt – and they persuaded the Khedive to offer them Cleopatra’s Needle. With Egypt suffering deep financial problems – and eager to improve trade with the USA – the Khedive had little choice but to acquiesce. However, there was still opposition to Gorringe’s desire to remove the monolith. Britain and France objected to the upstart Americans acquiring an obelisk and discovered an eagerness to preserve Egypt’s heritage, lobbying the Egyptian authorities not to allow the artefact to go. In addition to this, the Egyptians themselves were growing more concerned about the carrying off of their inheritance. Demonstrations were organised and angry editorials appeared in newspapers. To top it all, an Italian man came forward claiming to own the land on which Cleopatra’s Needle stood – he was quietened by a threat from Gorringe to sue.

The Cleopatra’s Needle that would go to New York City still upright in the Caesareum in 1880. Its twin obelisk had already been removed to London.

Another potential source of friction had a more American tone. There was the possibility of debates in Congress, debates with the potential to delay the acquisition of Cleopatra’s Needle for years. An arrangement was therefore contrived by which the obelisk was directly gifted to the City of New York, thereby bypassing the threat of lengthy and tortuous disquisitions. The only problem remaining was how to facilitate and fund the transport of the monument, especially now that New York was expected to come up with the cash. Raising such a sum wasn’t guaranteed to be easy. The torch-bearing-arm of the Statue of Liberty was around that time exhibited in Madison Square Park, in an attempt to revive the stuttering campaign to generate the money to assemble the rest of the figure. However, as far as Cleopatra’s Needle was concerned, assistance soon arrived. The railroad magnate – and America’s richest man – William Vanderbilt stepped in and donated $100,000 (well over $3 million in modern money). Vanderbilt – a Freemason – helped select the site on which the obelisk would stand. Greywacke Knoll was chosen as Vanderbilt didn’t want the magnificent monolith overshadowed by growing city.

The challenge now was how to shift the obelisk and get it over the Atlantic to New York. Vanderbilt invited proposals on how this could be done and in August 1879, Gorringe was granted the commission. Gorringe first built a long wooden crate. After encasing Cleopatra’s Needle in this vast coffin, he used hydraulic jacks and various devices to lower it. The next problem was how to get the obelisk and its box to the Nile. Gorringe came up with a clever solution – he laid out a track of cannonballs and rolled the crate over them. Gorringe had bought an old Egyptian postal ship and reinforced its hull – and it was onto this ship he had Cleopatra’s Needle loaded. The monument’s pedestal and the stairs leading up to it were also hoisted on board. Unlike the disastrous voyage of Cleopatra’s Needle to London, the sea journey to New York was mostly hassle-free. On July 19th 1880, the postal ship with its ancient freight arrived off New York’s Fire Island.

Cleopatra’s Needle being loaded onto the modified postal ship to begin its voyage to New York City. It was slid onto the boat via a specially created portal in the hull.

The next day, a pilot boat guided the ship to Staten Island, where it passed through the quarantine station. Given the all-clear, the boat sailed up the Hudson River and docked at 23rd Street. New York had been ardently anticipating the artefact’s arrival, and while the boat was docked, 1700 people per day came aboard to gaze upon the monument. But even though Cleopatra’s Needle had been successful transported to New York, there was still the logistical issue of how to get it across the city to Central Park. The decision was made to first move the pedestal. The boat sailed further upriver to 51st Street, where a crane offloaded the 50-ton base onto a carriage. 32 horses dragged it through the city, with the carriage’s wheels carving deep grooves into the road due to the weight of its burden. The pedestal was, however, successfully put in place in Central Park, with the city now in even more of a ferment about its ancient acquisition. This would only be heightened when New York’s Masons put on a spectacular demonstration of reverence. Masonic mythology attaches great importance to the idea of cornerstones and the brotherhood were determined to welcome this very special foundation stone to their town.

Strange Masonic Rituals, Weird Occult Alignments and a Miniature Cleopatra’s Needle on a New York Grave

On October 9th 1880, a solemn procession of over 9,000 Masons and members of the Knights Templar paraded up 5th avenue to Central Park, with many clad in black clothes, tall hats, white gloves and aprons. A crowd of 50,000 lined the route. After the Masons arrived at the pedestal, a grand ceremony was conducted. Grain – symbolising plenty – was tipped over the stone. Next, the Grand Senior Mason poured on wine – symbolising joy – before his junior poured on oil, representing peace. The Grand Marshal then walked to each side of the platform and said: “In the name of the Grand Lodge of the State of New York, I now proclaim the cornerstone of this obelisk – known as Cleopatra’s Needle – duly laid in ample form.” On every side of the base, he recited these words three times, after which the mass of assembled Masons clapped their hands thrice. Grand Master Anthony then made a speech, all about the Ancient Egyptians and their pyramids and how they had the power to predict the future.

However, the Grand Master didn’t go as far as Gorringe in claiming a connection between Egypt’s ancient inhabitants and modern Freemasons. According to The New York Times: “The most remarkable part of the Grand Master’s address was that in which he disclaimed any Masonic origin for the hieroglyphics found upon the obelisk and this was a part of his oration, coming from such high Masonic authority, that could not have been edifying to those persons who have found – as are professed to believe – evidences of the existence of the Masonic Order at the time this obelisk was first erected.” Gorringe and others, as The New York Times implied, must have been gutted to hear the Grand Master’s words.

As for Cleopatra’s Needle itself, first the boat sailed to a dock on 96th Street, where the obelisk was floated from the ship catamaran-style on pontoons. To move the monument to its place in Central Park, Gorringe hit upon another ingenious idea. He had the obelisk rolled on railway-like tracks, with workers continually taking up the lengths of track behind and positioning them again in front of the monolith as it made its stately way through the city. In this manner, Cleopatra’s Needle covered approximately a block a day, taking 40 days in total to reach its destination. The most challenging part of the journey was when the obelisk had to get across the real railroad tracks of the Hudson River Railway. However, this railroad was part of a Vanderbilt-owned firm. One order from the tycoon halted the trains so the obelisk could lumber over the tracks. On January 5th 1881, Cleopatra’s Needle arrived at Greywacke Knoll.

The vast edifice was then kept suspended above the base, awaiting a ceremony set for January 22nd during which Gorringe himself would lower it onto its plinth. Gorringe had completed all the calculations, but remained anxious in case something might go wrong on his big day. So, on the night of January 20th, he crept into Central Park with a band of collaborators. They did a midnight test run, during which Gorringe was relieved to observe everything would be all right. On January 22nd – despite sub-zero temperatures – thousands of New Yorkers watched as the obelisk was manoeuvred into the position it still occupies today. As in London, a time capsule was placed beneath. Among other items, it contained the American Declaration of Independence, a set of military medals, and a guide to Egyptian and Masonic symbols.

Cleopatra’s Needle remains a popular attraction in Central Park, New York City (Photo: King of Hearts)

Since that time, Cleopatra’s Needle has remained a much-visited tourist site. The monument’s looming presence in the centre of New York helped fuel American Egyptomania into the 20th century, when the craze for all things Egyptian was again boosted by the British archaeologist Howard Carter’s discover of Tutankhamen’s tomb in 1922. It seems the needle’s position outside the Metropolitan Museum of Art has had a galvanising impact on the Met’s collection. Perhaps not willing to be outdone by European museums, the Met financed expeditions to Egypt between 1906 and 1936. The Met boasts a phenomenal collection of Ancient Egyptian artefacts, including the Temple of Dendur. An exceptionally holy site seen as home to the gods, the temple was rescued from the rising waters of the Aswan High Dam and reassembled in the Met in the 1960s.

Questions, though, remain about the positioning of Cleopatra’s Needle. As early as 1923, newspapers were pointing out that the obelisk isn’t in exact alignment with the sun. (Egyptian obelisks have traditionally also functioned as sun dials.) It’s been argued, however, that this is no mistake and that a different – possibly Masonic – alignment has always been intended. According to the website Forgotten New York, there are three obelisks in Manhattan, though the other two are significantly younger than Cleopatra’s Needle. One of these monuments – found in the graveyard of St Paul’s Chapel – was constructed in the 1830s to commemorate Thomas Addis Emmet, an Irish lawyer and revolutionary and Attorney General of New York State. Although a cube-shaped chamber lies under the obelisk, Emmet isn’t interred there. Instead, he was buried at St Mark’s Church in the Bowery and later reburied in Ireland. The third obelisk – in Worth Square, at the junction of 25th Street, Fifth Avenue and Broadway – marks the resting place of General William Jenkins Worth (a powerful Freemason). This obelisk – which dates to 1857 and stands close to the Flat Iron Building – reaches 51 feet and is the second oldest monument in New York. All three obelisks, it’s claimed, align perfectly at 29 degrees east of north, with General Worth’s marking the line’s midpoint. Just one block away from the Worth Obelisk is … New York’s Masonic Hall and Grand Lodge. The reader must use their judgement to decide whether this is all a coincidence, a bizarre Masonic code or some sort of occult psychogeography.

The Worth Monument in New York City. This obelisk stands in alignment with Cleopatra’s Needle and the obelisk of Thomas Addis Emmet (Photo: Jim Henderson)

This section of the post would, however, be incomplete without mentioning at least one other obelisk. In 1885, Henry Honychurch Gorringe died at the age of just 43 as a result of injuries received when either trying to alight from or board a moving train. The more superstitious might see the curse of Cleopatra’s Needle in Gorringe’s demise – a curse expressed in the irony of Gorringe meeting his end courtesy of the invention that had made so much money for the man who’d financed the obelisk’s transport. Moreover, 1885 was the year in which Gorringe published his book Egyptian Obelisks, which mainly explored his acquisition of Cleopatra’s Needle for Central Park. However, Gorringe’s friends did not seem to perceive the dark shadow of the obelisk in his death. Gorringe was buried in Rockland Cemetery, Sparkhill, New York State. His memorial stone declares: “his crowning work was the removal of Cleopatra’s Needle from Egypt to the United States, a feat of engineering without parallel.” In 1886, his friends erected a replica of Cleopatra’s Needle over his grave. The unveiling ceremony drew 500 people and was widely reported in the press. The monument – decorated with Egyptian-style cartouches and with an illustration showing how Gorringe raised and lowered the needle – stands at over 25 feet and is of white granite. It cost $25,000 dollars (around $840,000 in today’s money) and – like the original obelisk in Central Park – it stands on its own knoll, from where it overlooks the Hudson River.

Why might these Strange Legends Have Grown up around Cleopatra’s Needles and Might the Obelisks Be Returning to Egypt?

Along with Egyptomania, there was a general idea that Egyptian artefacts were cursed. Thus, all the legends of cursed mummies inhabiting the museums and disturbing the private collectors of North America and Europe. One legend, for example, concerns an artefact known as the Unlucky Mummy that ended up in the British Museum. Said to be the remains of a priestess or princess called Amen-Ra, the Unlucky Mummy was held responsible for illnesses and deaths, and for actions as outlandish as haunting London Underground stations via secret tunnels, sinking the Titanic and starting the Second World War. It’s perhaps inevitable that an Ancient Egyptian object as imposing as Cleopatra’s Needle would generate tales of curses and vengeful ghosts. The London Cleopatra’s Needle especially, given its traumatic voyage to England, fitted into the ‘cursed object’ narrative. Hence the legend of the sphinxes trying to deflect its occult power. Though there seem to be less stories of ghosts and curses linked to the New York obelisk, we could ask whether the elaborate Masonic ceremonies that prepared the plinth for the monument’s arrival were not also intended to abate its paranormal influence. As non-Masons, I suppose, we can only speculate and never know.

A frequent suggestion for this association of unquiet spirits, unruly occult powers and potent curses with Egyptian artefacts is guilt over colonial plunder and exploitation. And how could these artefacts – the obelisks ripped from their temples, the mummy cases with their mournful eyes and affectingly human faces gazing accusingly across millennia – not be offended by being carried across seas and oceans to cold, far-off lands? The story of Cleopatra’s Needles is very much the story of militarism and empire. These monuments to Egyptian imperial might, crowing in hieroglyphs of military victories, were unsurprisingly sought out by later empires to celebrate their conquests and triumphs. Carved on the base of the London obelisk is:

“This obelisk

Prostrate for centuries

on the sands of Alexandria

was presented to the

British nation A.D. 1819 by

Mohommed Ali, Viceroy of Egypt

A worthy memorial of

our distinguished countrymen

Nelson and Abercromby”

Britain and France – as well as batting for territory and influence in Egypt – also battled for its artefacts, the larger and more prestigious the better. As America was beginning to feel its status as the new and rising empire on the block, it inevitably wanted an obelisk of its own.

We might question, however, if Cleopatra’s Needles will always remain in Central Park and beside the murky Thames, with its tidal rise and fall perhaps a modest imitation of the mighty fluctuations of the Nile. Concern has been voiced about the condition of the artefacts in their foreign homes. The American needle especially is somewhat worn, with its hieroglyphs quite faded. Already blasted by the sands of the Libyan Desert – unlike its London cousin it wasn’t protected for centuries by lying under sand in the Caesareum – it has suffered from New York’s harsher climate, with its hotter summers and colder winters than London. There was also a disastrous attempt to renovate it in 1885, when it was covered in gasoline and 700 pounds of granite were chiselled away, a process that probably damaged or removed a good few hieroglyphs. In 2011, the needle was inspected by Zahi Hawass – the Minister of Egypt’s Supreme Council of Antiquities – who penned a letter declaring: “If the Central Park Conservancy and the City of New York cannot properly care for the obelisk, I will take the necessary steps to bring this precious artefact home and save it from ruin.” Though the London obelisk is in a somewhat better state, a comment from Hawass in 2018 suggested he was also less than impressed with its condition: “I went to see it yesterday and I was ashamed … If they don’t care, they should return it.”

The hieroglyphs on the Central Park Cleopatra’s Needle have become worn thanks to the New York climate, acid rain, air pollution and misguided attempts at renovation (Photo: Captain-tucker)

For now, however, the obelisks are likely to remain in position and these imported monuments will doubtless continue to form a central part of the networks of myth, folklore, imagination and foreboding that run through both cities. It’s as if the monoliths are immense pins holding in place these strange threads of energy and power. Or, as Jack the Ripper puts it in From Hell: “They call it Cleopatra’s Needle. He who’d wield it would the BEST of tailors be, to do its work, increase the Sun God’s sovereignty … encoded in this city’s stones are symbols thunderous enough to rouse the sleeping Gods submerged beneath the sea-bed of our dreams.”

This article’s main image shows Cleopatra’s Needle in London. (Photo: Colin Smith)

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Kensal Green Cemetery, an Abandoned Lover’s Tomb and the Spookiest Ever Telephone Mix-up

L. – as the man in the ghost story is referred to – was wandering through Kensal Green Cemetery after attending a funeral when he found himself lost in the sprawling 72-acre Victorian graveyard. Kensal Green was then one of London’s most fashionable burial grounds. The celebrities and innovators interred there included Charles Babbage, who had invented an early computer – called the Difference Engine – in collaboration with the daughter of Lord Byron. Other famous tenants were the engineer Isambard Kingdom Brunel; the novelists Anthony Trollope, W.M. Thackery and Wilkie Collins; Pre-Raphaelite painter W.C. Waterhouse, and the news vendor W.H. Smith. L. drifted past the ivy-entangled angels and elaborate gothic mausoleums and strayed into a poorer and more overgrown section of the graveyard. Already a little depressed from the funeral, he began to experience a rising melancholy, a sense of oppression from all the monuments to death and mourning around him. He, however, attempted to shake such feelings off and to interest himself in the different tombs, in the grave markers and their inscriptions. What was life, after all, but for living and he was certainly living his. Moneyed and successful, he moved in the capital’s intellectual circles, enjoying a stimulating social life. He felt he still had much to enjoy in what he hoped would be a long and pleasurable existence.

Kensal Green Cemetery was the burial place for some of London’s wealthiest and most famous people (Photo: Marathon)

Still, the cold, foggy, drizzly weather saddened him; he was irritated by the insistence of the clay soil of the cemetery in clinging to his feet. He wandered down a leafy pathway, taking in the epitaphs on the graves when his eyes flicked over an inscription that made him suck in a breath. He peered more closely and shuddered as he realised he hadn’t been mistaken. The grave was hers, all right. The headstone belonged to an ex-lover, Elsie, who L. had long ago left behind as his personal and professional life took an upward turn. Elsie – a lowborn girl from a dreary suburb nicknamed “the Clerks’ Dormitory” – had possessed “no working brains and no money to speak of”.

The publisher felt a stab of guilt as he remembered his decision to ditch Elsie, feeling she would inevitably hamper his social rise. He recalled how – on hearing of her passing – he’d been too embarrassed even to send a wreath from his Bond Street florist to her humble address. L.’s guilt was deepened by her grave’s condition. A simple cross – soot and weather-stained – poked out of the naked earth, listing at an angle “as if tired”. L. imagined Elsie “lying alone in wet clay and deeper darkness – nasty, sticky clay like that which he tried to clean off his boots by rubbing them against the marble surrounds.” L. made a note of the grave number – perhaps he could pay for a more dignified memorial. After all, someone else might “stumble upon it who knew the story and the name of his invisible mistress.” He winced at the thought of the gossip her dilapidated resting place might arose.

Elsie’s grave was found in a more modest section of Kensal Green Cemetery (Photo: Mr Ignavy)

Swiftly finding his bearings, L. strode from the gates of Kensal Green Cemetery and got into his car. But as he was driven back to Mayfair, he could pay no attention to the copy of The Times that vibrated on his lap. Arriving home, L. gave his coat and hat to his valet – Bowden – and tried to settle down to dinner. Yet, throughout the meal – and throughout the evening – he found himself weighed down by thoughts of mortality and memories of his defunct sweetheart. His mind became so gloomy that – after dismissing Bowden and the other servants – he decided to telephone a friend, hoping this acquaintance could call round for an hour and cheer him up.

L. went to the phone in his library, dialled the operator and asked for what he thought was his friend’s number. But as the operator put him through, L. realised he had requested Kensal Green _____, the number of Elsie’s grave. He stammered out his error, but it was too late and cold shivers overtook him as the receiver at the other end was picked up. A familiar voice answered. At first it sounded muffled, but soon became clearer.

“Yes, who’s calling?”

L. was so shocked he couldn’t help but give his name.

The other speaker gasped with delight.

“Why, it’s never you, darling,” Elsie exclaimed. “Do you want me? Of course, I’ll come.” (This was the way Elsie had always spoken during their telephone calls.)

L. tried to stutter “No, no, no” but couldn’t get his lips to form the words.

“I won’t be long,” Elsie said. “But I was very far away, darling, when you rang up.”

In utter horror, L. let the receiver slip from his hand. He thought about fleeing the house, but – in his panic – couldn’t make up his mind so he ended up waiting to see what would occur. When would the ghost arrive? How would she look? Surely she wouldn’t be clad in “her earth-stained shroud, with the seal of corruption on her face?” L. poured a large brandy and tried to calm down. “Damn it all, he wasn’t afraid of any woman living, much less a dead one. Let her come – even if she brings all the clay of Kensal Green with her!”

The front door opened quietly then closed itself. The temperature plummeted and from the hallway came the sound of footsteps stumbling and dragging, as if their owner’s legs had been stiff for a long time. Next came three gentle knocks on the library door. L. did not get to greet his ghostly visitor. He passed out in a faint and was discovered by Bowden in the morning’s early hours.

“And believe me or believe me not,” Bowden said, “bits of wet clay were sticking to the carpet and some was on his dinner jacket. Beats me how it got there. As for the hall mat; it was all mussed up. Why can’t people wipe their feet like Christians?”

After some time, L. began to recover from his experience of Kensal Green Cemetery and its ghost. He started to enjoy his successful and luxurious life again. But the incident bestowed upon him two new habits he would always thereafter follow. He would never again use the phone or attend funerals.

What Does This Strange Ghost Story of Kensal Green Cemetery Tell Us?

Whether these outlandish events happened or not, they perhaps give us an insight into the mentality, concerns and upheavals of the period in which the tale is set. This ghost story, first of all, has a strong class element. There’s L.’s urge for social mobility and his eagerness to leave his embarrassing past – represented by Elsie – behind. But despite L.’s success and wealth, there’s a sense he’s not totally accepted in fashionable and privileged circles. L. “preferred to speak to titles” and “knew to a nicety the degrees of the social scale and what status is demanded by Claridge’s, the Ritz and the Berkeley.” However, “he collected few friends but numerous acquaintances” and “his name never featured as a guest at Bohemian or theatrical gatherings”. L. cannot escape his origins – they continue to haunt the publisher. One slip-up under stress has the ghosts of his past resurrected. A past he’d hoped was dead and buried disinters itself and relentlessly hunts him down.

There’s also, of course, the class consciousness of the authors – how they give their story more credibility by attributing it to the Hon. Alec Carlisle. Their book True Ghost Stories is full of such name drops of the powerful and influential. In the stories themselves, many of the characters sport titles or reside in manor houses and even some of the spooks boast immaculate dress sense. As for Marchioness Townsend – the term ‘marchioness’ denotes a noble rank, meaning a marquess’s wife or widow. The self-consciously bohemian Maude M.C. Ffoulkes was a literal ghost writer who sought to join that aristocratic set and who collaborated with down-at-heel, exiled European royals in the early 1900s to produce – sometimes scandalous – autobiographies.

A lavish tomb in London’s Kensal Green Cemetery (Photo: Marathon)

The story of Kensal Green Cemetery’s ghost also seems full of repressed sexuality. Though society had by that time shaken off some of the more rigid Victorian restrictions, many still had a horror of the body and sex, especially – it seems – the sensuality of the lower-class and female. The fact that Elsie’s desires are so strong they can resurrect her from the grave and are expressed in such gothic and lurid form, the fact that L. finds himself ravished and daubed with graveyard dirt perhaps hint at sexual feelings that many in society would have liked to have kept in a box buried under six feet of mud but which had the distressing habit of breaking free from their confinement.

Another aspect of the tale is how the superstitious and folkloric combine with social progress and modern technology. There’s L.’s use of new-fangled telecommunications, but it is that very technology that delivers the ghost to his door. It seems the supernatural has the ability to subvert humanity’s most impressive inventions. Even the location – Kensal Green Cemetery – hints at social renewal. Kensal Green is one of the ‘Magnificent Seven’ – a series of spacious graveyards built on London’s then-outskirts to relieve pressure on the capital’s overcrowded and insanitary churchyards and crypts. This progress is, however, still prone to disruption by the unruly (un)dead. It’s interesting that occult and macabre legends are associated with other Magnificent Seven cemeteries. In the 1970s, London and the entire country were gripped by rumours that a vampire lurked in Highgate Cemetery while a myth has grown up about a neo-Egyptian tomb in Brompton Cemetery being a magically powered Victorian time machine. Brompton Cemetery is also said to be haunted by the murdered Victorian actor William Terriss, who is buried there and who also haunts Covent Garden Underground Station.

A telephone exchange in Montreal, 1895. At the time of the Kensal Green ghost story, most calls had to be connected through an operator.

Many of the turn-of-the-century anxieties found in the tale of Kensal Green Cemetery and its ghost surface in other gothic literature of the period. Bram Stoker’s Dracula, for instance, is full of social tensions, with its middle-class fears of both the aristocracy and the working class. The book frets over the role of the liberated ‘new woman’ and even has Lucy Westenra – manic with her unleashed vampiric sexuality – breaking from her tomb and roaming an area suspiciously like Highgate. Dracula is also full of the technological advances of the time – telegrams, phonographs, blood transfusions, trains – that contrast strangely with the folkloric powers of stakes, crucifixes and bulbs of garlic.

So, the story of Kensal Green Cemetery and its ghost – as grotesque as it might appear – maybe gives us a window into the priorities and concerns of a different era. The account of this lascivious spook contains within it a range of social, sexual, psychological and technological anxieties. Though now long-buried beneath the clay of time, this absurd yet chilling tale does make one wonder what other things might lie under the patina of the everyday mind, just waiting for the opportunity to be resurrected.

(This article’s main image – showing a gothic tomb in London’s Kensal Green Cemetery – is courtesy of Marathon.)

The post Kensal Green Cemetery’s Strange Ghost Story – Grave 132 Please, Operator appeared first on David Castleton Blog - The Serpent's Pen.

This legend maintained that a pregnant sow had somehow tumbled into a sewer and become lost in the maze-like world of London’s drains. After sustaining herself on the offal and rubbish that regularly washed through the system, the sow had given birth to her litter down there. According to one 19th-century account, her piglets soon grew up to ‘multiply exceedingly and become almost as ferocious as they are numerous’. Their inevitable inbreeding and strange light-starved environment apparently produced a race of monstrously large, black-furred hogs. These wild pigs were a terror to the ‘toshers’ – men who roamed the sewers hunting for coins, jewellery and other valuables that had slipped down drains to lie in the tunnels’ noxious silt. The toshers claimed the pigs hurtled out of the gloom to attack them if they got too close and that they had to keep a constant watch for the creatures if their subterranean wanderings took them anywhere near Hampstead. Some toshers even armed themselves in case they encountered the beasts.

It seems the story of the Hampstead sewer pigs first grew up as a piece of occupational folklore among the toshers before being introduced to the general public courtesy of the journalist Henry Mayhew in his book series London Labour and the London Poor (1851), a vividly written, popular and highly influential work. The legend would also make it into the Daily Telegraph and even get a mention from Charles Dickens, all of which no doubt led many Londoners to shiver with the fear that there actually might be bands of ferocious pigs charging about just a few feet below them.

A quiet lane in Hampstead – did wild pigs once rove the sewers beneath it? (Photo: Nigeljbee)

But could there really have been a colony of feral boars roaming the sewers beneath Hampstead? Other than the toshers’ legends, what evidence was there for the existence of such creatures? What exactly did Mayhew say about the sewer pigs in his book? And what aspects of the toshers’ dark and dangerous lives in the thousands of narrow miles of London sewers might have triggered the rise of such a strange piece of folklore?

Continue reading for legends of a ‘Queen Rat’ who could transform herself into a stunning woman with an exceptional appetite for sex, of accounts of alligators swimming in the sewers of New York, and of rat swarms devouring toshers lost in lonely pipes. Also read on to learn how an infamous ‘Great Stink’ finally forced London to reorganise its sewer system – courtesy of the legendary Joseph Bazalgette – and how this rationalisation eventually helped drive some of the more outrageous myths from that subterranean world.

How the Legend of Hampstead’s Giant Sewer Pigs Was Born

A story recorded as early as 1736 has a pig fleeing a butcher’s knife and escaping into the sewers somewhere around Smithfield, a famous meat market on the edge of the old City of London. This plucky hog apparently spent five months roaming London’s sewers and feasting on their detritus before eventually emerging from the Fleet Ditch (the River Fleet, which had by that time become little more than an open sewer, a watercourse that, according to the poet Alexander Pope, ‘rolls the large tribute of dead dogs to Thames’).

The first published account of Hampstead’s subterranean pigs, however, comes from Henry Mayhew’s London Labour and the London Poor. Mayhew had spent most of the 1840s scrutinising the lives of London’s more impoverished residents. He studied the work such people did, along with their domestic arrangements, sources of entertainment and religious beliefs, combining his own observations with official statistics. Among those he interviewed were food vendors, ‘bone grubbers’, ‘Hindoo tract sellers’, an eight-year-old girl who sold watercress, ‘pure finders’ (who hunted out dog dirt then sold it to tanners), rat catchers, prostitutes, sweatshop workers, and ‘sewer hunters’.

The sewer hunters seem to have especially fascinated Mayhew. Also known as ‘toshers’ – after the ‘tosh’, meaning the scrap metal, nails, coins and bits of jewellery they sought out – these men walked London’s sewers with long-handled hoes. With these tools, they scoured the sediment on the pipes’ bottoms for such ‘treasures’. Mayhew wrote that until ‘some years ago, any person desirous of exploring the dark and uninviting recesses’ could get into London’s sewer system via the mouths of the huge pipes that gaped on the shore of the Thames and then simply ‘wander away, provided he could withstand the combination of villainous stenches that met him at every step, for many miles, in any direction.’ The toshers – their lanterns strapped to their chests – tended, however, to navigate this labyrinth in groups: due to fear of rat attacks. Through numerous conversations with the toshers, Mayhew came to piece together ‘a strange tale … of a wild race of hogs inhabiting the sewers near Hampstead’ which he described thus:

‘The story runs that, a sow in young, by some accident got down the sewer through an opening, and, wandering away from the spot, littered and reared her offspring in the drain: feeding on the offal and garbage washed into it continuously. Here, it is alleged, the breed multiplied exceedingly, and have become almost as ferocious as they are numerous. The story, apocryphal as it seems, nevertheless has its believers …’

A sceptic may, however, assert that – if a man could get into the sewers by simply walking into a pipe – surely the pigs could get out via the same method. According to Mayhew, though, the toshers ‘ingeniously argued, that the reason why none of the subterranean animals have been able to make their way to the light of day, is that they could only do so by reaching the mouth of the sewer at the riverside, while, in order to arrive at that point, they must necessarily encounter the Fleet Ditch (which was by then enclosed), which runs towards the river with great rapidity, and as it is the obstinate nature of a pig to swim against the stream, the wild hogs of the sewers invariably work their way back to their original quarters, and are thus never to be seen.’

A tosher at work in the London sewer system

Though Mayhew wrote somewhat sceptically that ‘the reader of course can believe as much of the story as he pleases’, the tale of the wild pigs seems to have spread. Dickens referred to the legend and on 10th October 1859 an article mentioning Hampstead’s feral hogs appeared in the Daily Telegraph, by which time the story seemed to have acquired apocalyptic overtones:

‘This London is an amalgam of worlds within worlds, and the occurrences of every day convince us that there is not one of these worlds but has its special mysteries and generic crimes. Exaggeration and ridicule often attach to the vastness of London, and ignorance of its penetralia common to us who dwell therein. It has been said that beasts of chase still roam in the verdant fastness of Grosvenor Square, that there are undiscovered patches of primeval forest in Hyde Park and that Hampstead sewers shelter a monstrous breed of black swine, which have propagated and run wild among the slimy feculence, and whose ferocious snouts will one day uproot Highgate archway, while they make Holloway intolerable with their grunting.’

But could there have been any truth in the legends of the monstrous swine of Hampstead’s sewers? Could a pig have really got down there and started a hideous mutant breed or might the legend rather be some strange projection, some outlandish symbol of the daily sufferings of the capital’s toshers? Let’s plunge deeper into the dark waters of this very odd tale and attempt to find out.

Could There Have Been Any Truth in the Legends of Hampstead’s Huge Underground Pigs and What in the Toshers’ Lives Might Have Led to Myths of Such Monsters?

Theoretically, it could be possible that domestic animals ended up falling into sewers. London was full of livestock at that time – wandering pigs, cattle being driven to market – and many ditches and sewers were wide open or at least easy to enter. Whether any of these beasts would have managed to survive down there, completely failed to get out and succeeded in breeding a tribe of descendants is, however, more questionable. Henry Mayhew was, despite the protests of those he interviewed, dubious about the existence of such creatures, noting, ‘What seems strange in the matter is, that the inhabitants of Hampstead never have been known to see any of these animals pass beneath the gratings, nor to have been disturbed by their gruntings … it is also right to inform (the reader) that the sewer hunters themselves have never yet encountered … the monsters of the Hampstead sewers.’

Henry Mayhew – author of London Labour and the London Poor – wrote the first known accounts of the monstrous pigs of Hampstead’s sewers.

So, while it’s not impossible that a colony of pigs might have bred in the London sewer system, we should perhaps lean towards the sceptical in this matter and look for other explanations as to why this outlandish legend might have grown up. Perhaps we could see the sewer-dwelling hogs as a kind of symbol – in fleshy ferocious form – of the dangers and discomforts the toshers faced.

Their job was certainly perilous. London’s sewers – built over centuries without much planning – sprawled for thousands of sludgy miles. Perhaps a thousand miles of these narrow passages would have been navigable to humans though – Mayhew noted – they averaged a height of just three-feet-nine-inches. The toshers faced threats such as cave-ins, getting hopelessly lost in the endless warren, and stagnant fumes, not to mention rat attacks and the danger of being drowned when the tide came creeping up the Thames and into the tunnels. The tide filled the sewers to their ceilings twice daily. But, in addition to this, some sluices were raised at low tide, releasing tsunamis of sewage that could drown or even pulverise the incautious. Explosive gases, such as sulphate hydrogen, could lurk in the passageways while another hazard was falling bricks. ‘The bricks of the Mayfair sewer,’ the biographer of London, Peter Ackroyd, writes, ‘were said to be as rotten as gingerbread, you could have scooped them out with a spoon.’

To make matters worse, in 1840, the work of the toshers was declared illegal. Nobody was allowed to enter London’s sewer network without permission and a £5.00 reward was available to those informing on anyone doing so. This added to the dangers toshers faced as it meant they had to do most do their work at night, relying solely on lanterns, deprived of even the light that filtered down through gratings or shone from tunnel mouths. ‘They won’t let us work … as there’s a little danger,’ one sewer hunter complained. ‘They fears as how we’ll get suffocated, but they don’t care if we get starved!’

Flushing London’s sewers – sluices could sometimes release water, drowning unwary toshers.

Mayhew described the sewer hunters thus: ‘(They) may be seen, especially on the Surrey side of the Thames, habited in long greasy velveteen cloaks, furnished with pockets of vast capacity, and their nether limbs encased in dirty canvas trousers, and any old slops of shoes … (They) provide themselves, in addition, with a canvas apron, which they tie round them, and a dark lantern similar to a policeman’s: this they strap before them on the right breast, in such a manner that on removing the shade, the bull’s eye throws the light straightforward when they are in an erect position … but when they stoop it throws the light directly under them so that they can distinctly see any object at their feet. They carry a bag on their back, and in their left hand a pole about seven or eight feet long, on one end of which there is a large iron hoe.’

This hoe was an essential part of the tosher’s kit. As well as being used to rake through the sewer’s muck in search of valuables, this implement could save lives. Mayhew stressed that ‘should they, as often happens even to the most experienced, sink in some quagmire, they immediately throw out the long pole armed with the hoe, and with it seizing hold of any object within reach, are thereby enabled to draw themselves out.’

A group of toshers photographed in London’s sewers in the late 19th century – unlike earlier illegal toshers, these men were employed by the city

Though the tosher’s job was a dangerous one, it did have some rewards. Most toshers worked in gangs of three or four, led by an experienced man who could be between 60 and 80-years-old. These veterans knew where hidden cracks were located, cracks in which coins were frequently found lodged. Mayhew wrote of men who’d ‘dive their arm down to the elbow in mud and filth and bring up shillings, sixpences, half-crowns, and occasionally half-sovereigns and sovereigns. They always find these coins standing edge-uppermost between the bricks in the bottom, where the mortar has been worn away.’

The sewers could indeed harbour riches and it’s estimated that they supported a workforce of around 200 scavengers, many of whom went by nicknames, such as Lanky Bill, One-eyed George and Short-armed Jack. Mayhew found they could earn as much as six shillings a day ( about £36 in modern money), which – while it might not sound much – would have placed them in the upper income bracket of the working class at the time. Mayhew, with some astonishment, noted, ‘At this rate, the property recovered from the sewers of London would have amounted to no less than £20,000 (about £2.38 million today) per annum.’

Despite its many hazards, the sewer hunters didn’t necessarily view their work as unhealthy. Mayhew noted the men were fit, strong and even ruddy in skin tone. They often enjoyed remarkable longevity. Some even felt the stinking air of the tunnels ‘contributes in a variety of ways to their general health.’ Mayhew suspected that – if they were to become ill – it was more likely to be the fault of the fetid slums they lived in. The journalist described one narrow court south of the Thames as containing around 30 houses, each with no less than eight rooms, with each room stuffed with nine or 10 inhabitants.

Around the time Mayhew was making his records, though, life in the sewers was worsening. In addition to the new law forcing toshers to work at night, the tunnels in which they laboured were becoming filthier. Until the early 1800s, sewers transported little more than rainwater, with toilets discharging into cesspits rather than the sewer network. A law of 1847, however, closed all cesspits and ordered that latrines should empty directly into sewers, resulting in the tunnels building up linings of excrement. By the end of the decade, the Thames they all flowed into was biologically dead.

According to Michelle Allen – author of Cleansing the City: Sanitary Geographies in Victorian London – by the mid-19th century London’s sewers were ‘volcanos of filth, gorged veins of putridity, ready to explode at any moment in a whirlwind of foul gas, and poison all those who they failed to smother.’  Mayhew noted that the ‘deposit’ found in London’s sewers ‘has been found to comprise all the ingredients from the gas works, and several chemical and mineral manufacturies; dead dogs, cats, kittens and rats; offal from slaughter houses, sometimes even including the entrails of animals; street pavement dirt of every variety; vegetable refuse, stable dung; the refuse of pig styes; night soil; ashes; rotten mortar and rubbish of different kinds.’

The Fleet runs through a London sewer – apparently the river’s force prevented Hampstead’s sewer pigs from escaping the network.

Despite all this, the toshers seem to have considered animal – specifically rat – attacks and bites as the greatest danger of their trade. (Though it’s likely that more rats would have entered the sewers and the rat colonies down there would have expanded thanks to the increasing levels of waste London’s subterranean pipes were struggling to deal with.) Mayhew interviewed one Jack Black – ‘Rat and Mole Destroyer to Her Majesty’ – who told him, ‘When a bite is a bad one … it festers and forms a hard core in the ulcer, which throbs very much indeed. This core is as big as a boiled fish’s eye, and as hard as stone. I generally cuts the bite out clean with a lancet and squeezes … I’ve been bitten nearly everywhere, even where I can’t name to you, sir.’

The rat catcher Jack Black, depicted in Henry Mayhew’s London Labour and the London Poor

Mayhew stated he’d heard many stories of mass rat attacks on toshers, with the desperate men ‘slaying thousands in their struggle for life’. The rats didn’t dare attack toshers in a group, but if a pack of the creatures assailed a single man, he had little hope. The tosher would fight bravely, swinging at and batting the animals with his hoe until ‘at last the swarms of the savage things overpowered him’. The unfortunate tosher would likely be ripped to pieces, pieces that would drift with the rest of the sewage towards the Thames. His fellow toshers might discover some of his remains a few days later ‘picked to the very bones’.

It’s perhaps not surprising that the worsening state of the sewers and the existence of – real life – monstrous animals in them led to tales of ferocious beasts of a more mythical nature, such as Hampstead’s subterranean pigs. Hazardous working conditions can produce legends of weird beings. In mining folklore, there were creatures called ‘knockers’ – leprechaun-like characters, often clothed in miniature miners’ garb – who created the ‘knocking’ sound miners heard just before cave-ins. Some miners saw knockers as malevolent spirits who tried to cause collapses by hammering away at supports while others viewed them as kindly sprites who knocked to warn miners of approaching disaster. In the US steel industry, there emerged a character called Joe Magarac – a superhuman labourer made entirely of steel who drank molten metal, moulded steel with his bare hands, and saved workers from accidents. In Glasgow, a legend of an iron-fanged, child-eating vampire grew up around an iron works, a foundry which blighted its poverty-plagued neighbourhood with air, noise and light pollution.

Jacqueline Simpson and Jennifer Westwood  – in their Lore of the Land: A Guide to England’s Legends – mention another mythical creature known to the toshers: one ‘Queen Rat’. This rat followed groups of toshers through the sewers and – when she saw one she liked the look of – she would transform into a beautiful and seductive woman. Despite her beauty, however, her eyes – like a rodent’s – still reflected light and she had claws on her toes. If the tosher ‘gave her a night to remember’, Queen Rat would grant him luck, making sure he found lots of coins and precious items. If, however, the tosher was brash enough to boast of his exploits to his friends or if he clumsily offended the rodent queen, his luck would abruptly change and he’d drown or suffer a terrible mishap.

A legend handed down in a London family claims that in around 1890 a tosher called Jerry Sweetly met Queen Rat in a public house. Jerry took the girl to a dance, after which she ‘led him to a rag warehouse to make love’. As the two frolicked, Queen Rat bit Jerry on the neck, which she commonly did to mark her lovers so no other rats would hurt them. This, however, surprised Sweetly, causing him to lash out, at which Queen Rat sprang into the warehouse’s rafters. From there, she shouted, ‘You’ll get your luck, tosher, but you haven’t done paying me for it yet.’ Sweetly’s first wife died while giving birth and his second spouse was killed on the Thames, crushed between a barge and wharf. But good luck favoured all his children and – each generation – a girl is born into the Sweetly family with contrasting eyes: one blue, the other the grey colour of the Thames.

Could it be that the giant sewer-dwelling pigs of Hampstead and the tales of Queen Rat were legends invented by the toshers to express in mythical form their grim working conditions and the dangers they faced, both general hazards and those specifically associated with animal attacks? This to me seems a likely explanation, but what we must now ask is what happened to this strange folklore and what made it die out?

‘The Great Stink’ – Joseph Bazalgette’s Improvements Rationalise London’s Sewers and Challenge the Legend of Hampstead’s Underground Pigs

By the middle of the 19th century, it was clear that the way London dealt with its human waste needed to be overhauled. While there was an extensive sewer network, it was piecemeal, uncoordinated and frequently burdened beyond its capacity to cope, mainly due to a mushrooming population that had increased from one to three million in the first half of the 1800s. Mayhew wrote that during spring tides, effluence ‘burst up through the gratings and into the streets’ until the districts close to the Thames ‘resembled a Dutch town, intersected by a series of muddy canals.’ Almost all the filth of London did, eventually, however, end up in the Thames, with the introduction of the flushing toilet making matters much worse as it allowed wealthier inhabitants to channel their waste straight into the river.

The scientist Michael Faraday described how ‘near the bridges, the feculence rolled up in clouds so dense they were visible at the surface’ while Charles Dickens complained the Thames was ‘a deadly sewer … I can certify that the offensive smells, even in a short whiff, have been of a most head and stomach distending nature.’ The Thames was also the source of much of the capital’s water for drinking and washing and – unsurprisingly – several cholera epidemics ravaged London. The Metropolitan Board of Works had wanted to improve the city’s system of sewer disposal for years but had never had enough money.

Monster Soup – Commonly Called Thames Water, by William Heath, 1828. A woman drops her teacup in horror after a microscope reveals her drink’s impurity.

Things changed, however, in the summer of 1858 – when London endured an episode known as ‘the Great Stink’. A spell of freakishly hot weather exposed just how much human effluent, industrial waste and other pollutants the Thames was carrying and resulted in the most unbearable stench rising from the river. The stink overwhelmed all neighbourhoods close to the Thames, Westminster included.

The curtains of the Houses of Parliament were soaked in chloride of lime in a futile effort to rebuff the pong and there were discussions about moving the government to St Albans or Oxford. The prime minister Benjamin Disraeli was reported as fleeing from a committee room, ‘with a mass of papers in one hand and his pocket handkerchief applied to his nose’ and during a debate he referred to the Thames as ‘a Stygian pool, reeking with ineffable and intolerable horrors’. The press too complained long and loud about the state of the river and newspapers filled up with garish cartoons highlighting just how disgusting the Thames was. The City Press observed that ‘it stinks, and whoso inhales the stink can never forget it and can count himself lucky if he lives to remember it’ while The Standard described the watercourse as a ‘pestiferous and typhus breeding abomination.’ Queen Victoria and Prince Albert did attempt to take a pleasure cruise on London’s river, but the foul stench soon drove them ashore.

The ‘Silent Highwayman’. Death rows on the Thames, claiming the lives of those who won’t pay to have the river cleaned up. From Punch magazine, 1858

Perhaps because the river’s problems – rather than just slaying the poor and middle class with recurrent epidemics of cholera and typhoid – had now reached right into the home of power and assailed the very nostrils of the monarchy, action was swiftly taken. A bill was rushed through Parliament, becoming law in just 18 days. The bill provided money for a massive new sewer scheme, with The Times commenting that MPs had been ‘forced by sheer stench’ to tackle the issue.

A filthy Father Thames meets the scientist Michael Faraday. Faraday performed an experiment in which he dipped a piece of white paper in the river to test its opacity.

Joseph Bazalgette – the chief engineer of the Metropolitan Board of Works – was hired to design this new system, a network projected to cost the massive sum of £2.5 million (over £317 million in modern money). Bazalgette connected up the existing labyrinths of municipal drains and built 1,100 miles of new drains under London’s streets. All these drains, in turn, fed into 82 miles of brick-lined sewers, which themselves flowed into six large ‘interceptor sewers’, some of which were built around London’s ‘lost’ buried rivers, like the River Fleet. The interceptors discharged into two even more enormous tunnels that ran along the north and south banks of the Thames. Aided by pumping stations at Deptford and Abbey Mills – which used the biggest steam engines then operating in the world – these tunnels shifted all of London’s effluent eight miles downstream to be dumped in the Thames Estuary.

Bazalgette’s gargantuan project devoured 318 million bricks and 670,000 cubic metres of concrete. Thousands of labourers were employed to dig the new tunnels while the demand for bricklayers drove the wages of those craftsmen up by 20%. Though the construction of his system wasn’t without its problems, many of Bazalgette’s sewers still serve London to this day and his designs have very much marked the face of the city. His huge riverside tunnels are buried under elaborate embankments – among them the Victoria, Chelsea and Albert Embankment – the construction of which narrowed the Thames by 22 metres. Bazalgette’s project was not completed until 1875, by which time the sewer system could carry two billion litres of wastewater every day.

A sewer being constructed as part of Bazalgette’s project in Bow, East London, 1859

We might ask what all this has to do with colonies of feral pigs living underneath Hampstead. It appears – as Bazalgette’s scheme involved so much surveying and reconstruction and the pouring of so many labourers and engineers down into London’s underworld – that the whole sewer network became far less of a enigma. Bazalgette himself insisted on inspecting every interchange between the old drains and new sewers and signing off every single plan that was part of his grand project. As there were absolutely no reports of any workmen or contractors encountering the supposedly large hoards of terrifying swine, the legend seems to have been discredited before fading from memory. But even the most rationally organised sewers will still have a certain mystery about them, will always represent a sort of urban Hades, a dark and claustrophobic netherworld, a collective unconscious of the city where strange, semi-mythical beings still might lurk, as we’ll find out in the next section.

Joseph Bazalgette depicted as a London sewer snake, in Punch magazine, 1883

Alligators in the Sewers of New York, Subterranean Cows and How ‘Improvements’ Might Sometimes Create Their Own Monsters

In addition to Hampstead’s wild pigs and the folklore of Queen Rat, there are other strange tales of underground animals. One of the most notorious legends of subterranean creatures comes from New York. On February 9th 1935, New York’s newspapers were abuzz with the news that an alligator had been found in an uptown sewer. Some East Harlem teenagers had been shovelling snow down a drain when one of them had noticed movement. Peering into the hole, he’d been shocked to realise he was looking at an alligator. The youths lassoed the animal with a clothesline, dragged it up into the street, and – when it snapped at them – they beat it to death with their shovels. The beast’s corpse weighed 125 pounds and boasted a length of seven-to-eight feet.

Could this report have been true? Though newspapers in the late 19th and early 20th centuries were often full of what we’d today call ‘fake news’ – ranging from ‘unlucky mummies’ to man-eating plants – there are other accounts of alligators cropping up in New York. In 1932, two alligators – one almost three feet long – were discovered near the Bronx River in Westchester while in 1937 a barge captain lassoed a nearly five-foot, one-hundred-pound creature off Pier Nine in the East River. ‘Well, I can’t throw it back where the boys go swimming,’ the captain said, when the police declined to take the alligator off his hands. ‘I guess I got myself a pet.’ Just six days later, a two-foot alligator was spotted crawling along a Brooklyn subway platform and was caught by the police.

The New York sewer alligators are likely to have been discarded pets. Baby alligators were once quite a craze, with one ad in a boys’ magazine stating: ‘Do you want a baby alligator? You bet you do. What boy wouldn’t?’ These alligators, the ad promised, could be sent through the post at a total charge of $1.50. Newspaper reports gave details of postal clerks sometimes struggling with such creatures that had escaped their packages. The alligators, of course, didn’t stay babies for long, no doubt leading to some being slipped down the drain. Though it seems there was some truth in the tales of alligators swimming in New York’s chilly waters and crawling in the city’s sewer pipes, it’s likely the extent of the issue was exaggerated by the media and a panicking public, resulting in scare stories somewhat similar to those of Hampstead’s subterranean swine.

An alligator is captured in New York’s East River

Cows were also once believed to run beneath New York streets – in special tunnels constructed at the end of the 19th-century to relieve ‘cow jams’ in Manhattan’s Meatpacking District. Such tunnels were rumoured to have existed beneath Twelfth Avenue, under Greenwich, Renwick or Harrison Street, and under Gansevoort Street in the West Village. Some say the tunnels are oak-lined, others that they’re lined with field stones or made of steel. Some claim these bovine corridors were demolished to make way for gas mains; others assert they still lie beneath New York in a perfect state of preservation. The Edible Geography website sees this legend as something of an eruption of the countryside into the heart of the new urban environment: ‘What’s amazing about these elusive cow tunnels is that, whether or not they actually exist, they form a shared urban fantasy – a mythical meat-processing infrastructure haunting contemporary New York.’

Edible Geography also delves into the folklore of Hampstead’s sewer pigs, pointing out that – in the mid-1800s – when the legend of Hampstead’s underground swine was at its most vigorous, Hampstead was a semi-rural farming village on the outskirts of London. At the time, however, London’s relationship with its rural surroundings was changing due to factors such as the advent of railways and factories, the Metropolis’s ever-expanding growth, and migration from the countryside to the city. Might Hampstead’s legends of sewer pigs then, like New York’s cow tunnels, have perhaps been a reaction against these upheavals, a way to remember the rural in an environment that was rapidly urbanising? Might the pigs have been a relatively short-lived, transitional myth that was doomed to be swept away by even greater progress – the building of Bazalgette’s sewer system? In 1859, the writer Richard Rowe complained of how such ‘improvements’ had blighted the landscape, lamenting how sewers and railways had ‘played sad havoc with the country around London’, scarring it with ‘cannon-like drained pipes’ that ‘crash the nettles in the ditches’ and ‘raw red entrances’ to tunnels that resembled wounds. It might also be said, however, that the Hampstead and Highgate area does seem to be home to a lot of odd myths – from haunted old pubs, to a vampire said to have skulked in Highgate Cemetery, to the ghost of a semi-plucked chicken that the 17th-century philosopher Francis Bacon had tried to preserve by stuffing with snow.

Whatever the cause of the strange legend of Hampstead’s underground pigs, it is perhaps a story that can be seen as mapping London’s rapid and traumatic development, a story which draws from the danger, tough working conditions, wealth, poverty, sickness, filth, progress, hope and myth that have clustered around the growth of one of the world’s darkest and most influential cities.

(This article’s main image is courtesy of padonak39)

The post The Monstrous & Terrifying Wild Pigs of Hampstead’s Sewers appeared first on David Castleton Blog - The Serpent's Pen.

The mausoleum was designed for the rich newspaper publisher, owl obsessive and notorious playboy James Gordon Bennett Jr. Bennett planned for his tomb to be entirely hollow and – even more strangely – for his coffin to hang in its centre, suspended from the roof by huge iron chains. Far from the tomb being a private place of rest, tourists and city dwellers would be encouraged to enter it. In the hollow interior, a staircase would spiral up from a pedestal and snake around the dangling coffin before ascending to the eyes of the owl. These eyes would be windows, offering vertigo-inducing views over New York.

The site James Gordon Bennett Jr. chose for his flamboyant sepulchre was Washington Heights, part of which was the property of the Bennett family. This piece of land – on 183rd Street and today known as Bennett Park – sits 265 feet above sea level. Altogether – with the owl itself standing at 125 feet and the pedestal at 75 – Bennett’s tomb would have loomed over the city at an incredible (for the time) 465 feet. By contrast, the Statue of Liberty thrusts her flame to a rather stunted-seeming height of just 305.

A sketch of the proposed owl-shaped tomb of James Gordon Bennett Jr., by the artist Andrew O’Connor

The man Bennett chose to design his ostentatious mausoleum was Stanford White, a brilliant architect and highly controversial character from the prestigious company McKim, Mead and White. This firm had already designed such notable edifices as Columbia University, the Brooklyn Museum and the second Madison Square Garden and would go on to sketch out the plans for Pennsylvania Station and the New York Public Library. So it’s clear Bennett wished for his mausoleum to be up there among New York’s most impressive structures.

Obviously, a massive owl-shaped tomb doesn’t tower over New York today, but was Bennett’s mausoleum actually ever constructed? Who exactly was James Gordon Bennett Jr., how did he acquire his stupendous wealth and shocking reputation, and where might his spooky obsession with owls have come from? Were any other owls made in response to Bennett’s wishes and can any still be seen peering gloomily down from New York buildings today?

Below is a tale of the jaw-dropping excesses of America’s ‘Gilded Age’, of philandering architects being most publicly murdered, of weird secret societies that used owls as emblems, of Greek goddesses popping up in late-19th-century New York, and of green eyes lit up eerily for over 100 years by incandescent bulbs.

The Privileged, Strange and Outrageous Life of James Gordon Bennett Jr

The source of most of James Gordon Bennett Jr.’s wealth was his newspaper the New York Herald, which he inherited from his father – James Gordon Bennett Sr. – in 1867. Born in Scotland, Bennett Sr. had moved to America at the age of 24 and – after working as a freelance journalist – had founded his own publication. Bennett Sr. possessed the noble idea that ‘the object of the modern newspaper is not to instruct but to startle and amuse’ and the New York Herald duly served up a moreish diet of crime, scandals, gossip and political intrigue. In just its second year, the Herald gained massive sales from its salacious coverage of the murder of a high-class prostitute and year-after-year repeated this feat with similar sensationalist stories. The Herald is also believed to have published the first ever interview in the United States media – conducted with, perhaps unsurprisingly, the madam of a brothel. Some of the Herald’s coverage was so shocking that angry crowds would gather around the newspaper’s headquarters – Bennett Sr. had a supply of weapons stashed in the office to deal with such mobs. By the time Bennett Sr. handed the running of the paper over to James Gordon Bennet Jr., such lurid reporting – along with the ‘penny paper’s’ cheap price – had given the New York Herald the highest circulation in the United States.

James Gordon Bennett Jr., photographed around 1901

James Gordon Bennett Jr. was, like his father, skilled at sniffing out sensationalist news items, but he certainly didn’t expend all his energies on his work. Bennett Jr. was known around Manhattan for his excesses and oddities. He indulged in all the usual rich boys’ hobbies – polo, hot-air ballooning and tennis as well as enthusiastic drinking and partying. One trick he was especially fond of was racing a carriage and four horses through midnight streets in the nude. Once, in Paris, he had to be taken to hospital – presumably in his birthday suit – after driving under a low arch and bashing his head. Despite all his antics, James maintained a furious work ethic, rising at dawn to deal with business correspondence and articles cabled to him by reporters and editors.

Perhaps his greatest passion was yachting. He learned to sail at a young age, becoming the youngest ever member of the New York Yachting Club at just 16. In 1866, he won the world’s first transatlantic yacht race and he also captained a ship in the Civil War for a year on the side of the Union. Legend states that during this service he was one night woken by a hooting owl – hoots that alerted him his boat was in danger of running aground. (Some say his craze for owls started then.) On his yachts, he entertained bon vivants, artists, painters and even a young Winston Churchill and was known in New York society as ‘the Mad Commodore’ (a commodore being the president of a yacht club).

During the Gilded Age (from around 1870 to about 1890) the American economy boomed and – despite the presence of inequality and poverty – there were fortunes to be made. Those lucky enough to amass – or inherit – such wealth often engaged in idiosyncratic behaviour that mirrored the roaring spirit of the epoch. Another famous New Yorker was the socialite Evander Berry Wall whose offbeat fashions – thigh-length leather boots for himself and collars and ties for his dogs – led to him being nicknamed the King of Dudes. The industrialist C.K.G Billings once threw a dinner party in a Fifth Avenue Ballroom, during which he appeared on horseback and insisted his guests drank their champagne from rubber tyres. Then there was Alva Vanderbilt who – in a huff at not being able to get a private box at the Academy of Music – stormed off to found the Metropolitan Opera. But one particular incident would mark James Gordon Bennett Jr. out from even this crazy cast of rich eccentrics.

On New Year’s Day in 1877, Bennett – completely drunk – staggered into a party hosted by the family of his fiancée Caroline May. There he distinguished himself by urinating into a fireplace (or, some say, a grand piano) in front of all the guests. The engagement was swiftly broken off, but such was the family’s outrage that Caroline’s brother Freddy assaulted Bennett with a horsewhip the next day and even challenged him to a duel. The pair met for pistols at dawn (a practice already considered archaic by that time) and seem to have only avoided killing or injuring each other through being such poor shots. Bennett, though, never recovered his social standing and – the following year – slunk off in disgrace to live in Paris. He’d spend much of the rest of his life in that city or travelling the world on a succession of yachts.

One yacht Bennett acquired during his early years in Paris was the Lysistrata, a 300-foot beast boasting a Turkish bath, a theatre troupe, a luxury French sports car and a crew of 100. The yacht also had its own cow – kept in a padded, fan-cooled stall – so that fresh cream could be served at the captain’s table. Bennett also for a time resided at Louis XIV’s old estate at Versailles, where he entertained regally. He kept his newspaper interests going from exile, founding the Paris Herald and dreaming up new stunts to sell his publications. For one of these, he decided to ‘find’ the explorer David Livingstone in Africa (despite the fact that Livingstone wasn’t actually lost). The journalist Henry Morton Stanley – who supposedly spoke the immortal words ‘Dr Livingstone, I presume’ – was funded by Bennett and the Herald. Bennett also financed an 1879 journey to the North Pole by the navy veteran George Washington de Long. This project was, however, less successful as de Long’s ship was crushed by ice in the Bering Strait, with 20 crew members dying on the freezing trek that then had to be made overland. Bennett’s antics, both personal and professional, were so widely known that it’s though the British expression of shock or surprise – ‘Gordon Bennett!’ – derived from him.

But how did this rowdy character – born into privilege and wealth – end up having such an obsession with owls, an obsession that took him to the point of demanding a massive tomb on prime New York real estate in the shape of one of those birds? What dark and occult meanings do owls have in folklore and mythology and how might these meanings have influenced Bennett? What secret societies in America at that time took owls as their emblems and is their any evidence that James Gordon Bennett Jr. was connected to any of them? Let’s investigate below.

James Gordon Bennett Jr.’s Obsession with Owls, Owls in Myth and Folklore, and Secret Societies with Spooky Owl Emblems

Bennett seems to have harboured an enthusiasm for owls for much of his life, an obsession that only seems to have grown over time. He began keeping live owls in his offices, he wore owl-themed cufflinks and even painted owls on the prow of his beloved yacht, the Lysistrata. He insisted an owl was printed on the masthead of the New York Herald and his newspapers carried articles and editorials arguing for the protection of the birds. When in the 1890s the Herald moved from ‘Newspaper Row’ in Lower Manhattan to a site in Midtown (now known as Herald Square), Bennett asked his friend and drinking partner, Stanford White, to design the new headquarters. Bennett unsurprisingly stipulated that plenty of owls should adorn the edifice.

Stanford White, the architect chosen by James Gordon Bennett Jr. to design both the New York Herald Building and his elaborate owl-shaped tomb

Though White based his design on the Renaissance-era Palazzo del Consiglio in Venice, he added some special features. The roofline of the building was strewn with bronze owls – 22 of them in total. Larger owls positioned on the building’s corners had green glass eyes illuminated with incandescent bulbs. A sculpture on the front of the building showed the Roman goddess Minerva positioned behind a large bell, upon which the deity’s attendant owl perched. Two burly typesetters wielding weighty mallets posed by the bell, which they’d ring according to the dictates of a complex mechanical apparatus.

The New York Herald Building, decorated with the statue of Minerva and many owls

This might be a good place to examine the role of the owl in folklore and myth. Minerva is seen as equivalent to the Greek goddess Athena and Athena has long had an association with owls. Owls have traditionally been symbols of wisdom, intelligence, art and scholarship, attributes associated with Athens and its patron goddess Athena, and the city and goddess both indeed had the owl as their emblem. Athens’s Acropolis was even home to a protected flock of the creatures. The owl also, however, has a darker aura of misfortune and death. The Roman poet Ovid (43 BC-17/18 AD) wrote that sighting the bird was an evil omen while his fellow Roman versifier Virgil (70 BC-19 BC) described an owl emitting a death howl from a temple at night, a screech that foreshadowed Dido’s death. According to Pliny the Elder (AD 23/4-79), Rome once had to undergo a cleansing ritual because one of the birds strayed into a temple on the Capitolium. In Kenya, seeing an owl or hearing its hoot means someone is about to die and in English folklore an owl hooting can also mean death. On a slightly more absurd note, Pliny the Younger (nephew of the Elder) claimed owls’ eggs were a good hangover cure.

We can perhaps see some of this folklore and symbolism reflected in Bennett’s life. I’m sure he would have seen intelligence as an important factor in his business dealings even if this virtue wasn’t so evident in the newspapers his company produced. The owl’s associations with death may be linked with his ideas of an extravagant owl-based tomb – he would have likely, being such an owl enthusiast, have known something of the bird’s mythical connections with mortality. Even Pliny the Younger’s notion of the hangover cure may have had some resonance with Bennett’s lifestyle!

A more fruitful line of enquiry may be, however, to look into the significance of the owl in secret societies. The Bavarian Illuminati – a late-18th-century group that has spawned countless global conspiracy theories about high society plots – had a grade known as the Minerval Academy, whose symbol was an owl. Though quite a low rank in the order, the Academy was important in the education of recruits. Initiates wore medallions that depicted an owl holding open a book – signifying wisdom – and surrounded by laurel leaves, symbolising graduation. The Illuminati also apparently liked the owl because it – like them – performed its important tasks at night and represented caution. Initiates recited a poem by Elizabeth Carter (1717-1806) which included much owl symbolism, with references to the ‘solitary bird of night’ and ‘favourite of Pallas’ (another name for Athena).

The owl of Minerva – on an Illuminati pamphlet – perched on an open book representing wisdom

A secret society that James Gordon Bennett Jr. is more likely to have had contact with, though, was known as the Bohemian Club. This association was a mysterious members’ club for journalists, publishers and those in the arts, and its symbol was an owl. The Bohemian Club – which still exists – states that the owl represents the wisdom of life and companionship, which allows humans to struggle with and survive the frustrations and cares of the world. A replica of an owl statue from the Acropolis adorns the library of the club’s headquarters in San Francisco, and even replicates the Greek bird’s chiselled-off beak. The seal of the Bohemian Club shows an owl and includes the motto ‘Weaving Spiders Come Not Here’. This alludes to an incident in which the mortal Arachne dared to challenge Athena – goddess of arts, needlework and handicrafts – to a weaving contest. Arachne’s impertinence led to her being turned into a spider as punishment. Interestingly, owls are also associated with Lilith, a vegetation demon and – according to Jewish folklore – Adam’s first wife. Lilith is described as a great screeching owl in the Book of Isaiah. A prominent ‘Boho’, the poet George Sterling, wrote a play called Lilith: A Dramatic Poem, in which Lilith mentions the owl, suggesting at least some Bohos knew of this symbolism. Sterling (1869-1926) lived in a private room in the Bohemian Club towards his life’s end, a room in which he – sadly – committed suicide.

Bas relief outside the Bohemian Club headquarters in San Francisco, showing an owl and the motto ‘Weaving Spiders Come Not Here’. (Photo: Binksternet)

The Bohemian Club owns a 2,700-acre campground in Monte Rio, California, known as Bohemian Grove, which is used for the club’s rituals and gatherings. The campground contains a 40-foot statue of an owl, which is the centrepiece of such ceremonies. Annual retreats began there in 1878 and have continued up until the present. In one pageant, a figure called ‘Care’ – representing the woes of life – is mocking burnt at the owl statue’s base. This ceremony was instituted in 1881 by the club’s co-founder James F. Bowman and it still goes on today, enlivened by colourful parades, pyrotechnics and brilliant costumes.

The 40-foot owl statue used by the Bohemian Club in their ceremonies. Was James Gordon Bennett Jr. a member?

It’s unclear whether James Gordon Bennett Jr. was a member of the Bohemian Club, but – with the nature of his work – he must have at least been aware of it and known people initiated into the organisation. The prominent nature of the owl on his planned tomb and the obsessive focus on that same symbol in the Bohemian Club may well suggest some link.

But what did actually happen to Bennett’s outlandish plans for an owl-inspired mausoleum? Was his looming monstrosity ever built and – if not – what eventually happened to Bennett and where was he laid to rest? What about the fate of the Herald’s extravagant owl-festooned headquarters and does anything remain of the building – or its owls – today? Read on and we’ll find out.

An Architect’s Murder, James Gordon Bennett Jr.’s Death and the Fate of His Owl-Shaped Tomb

However ludicrous James Gordon Bennett Jr.’s plans for his owl-like mausoleum might seem, his architects soon started work on the project in earnest. Stanford White hired a sculptor in Paxton, Massachusetts, to come up with designs and an artist, Andrew O’Connor, produced pencil sketches and clay models of the tomb. But an episode in June 1906 – involving the chief architect – would seriously undermine progress on the bird-shaped sepulchre.

White had a reputation for serial philandering and, more darkly, for sexual assaults. White’s home – in the original Madison Square Garden – was topped with a golden statue of the naked goddess Diana while across the park was an apartment in which he met women for erotic rendezvous. This ‘love lair’ – at 22 West 24 Street – appeared dingy from outside, but within was filled with red oriental silks and up-lit works of art. The actress Evelyn Nesbit described entering the apartment as ‘breath-taking … the predominating colour was a wonderful red … heavy velvet curtains shut out all the daylight.’ The bedroom was covered in mirrors and hanging from the ceiling was a ‘gorgeous swing with red velvet ropes around which trailed green similax.’

White had seen Evelyn Nesbit – one of the most famous and photographed actresses and models of the era – on stage and he was enchanted. Though almost three times Evelyn’s age, White deluged her with gifts before inviting her to his apartment where – following a lavish meal – he drugged and raped her. Evelyn, as baffling as it may seem, appears to have stayed smitten with White and the two then carried on a consensual affair that lasted several years.

Evelyn Nesbit – mistress of the architect Stanford White – in 1903

On 25th June 1906, White attended a performance of the musical Mam’zelle Champagne at the rooftop theatre of the old Madison Square Garden. As the show reached its finale, during a song – perhaps ironically – titled I Could Love a Million Girls, Evelyn’s then-husband, the multi-millionaire Harry K. Thaw, walked towards White’s table. Thaw pulled out a pistol, yelled either ‘you’ve ruined my life’ or ‘you’ve ruined my wife’, and fired three shots straight into White’s head, killing him instantly. The lengthy court case that followed gripped the nation, with the sensationalist newspapers – the New York Herald included – proclaiming it ‘The Trial of the Century’ and no doubt making plenty of money from their coverage. With White’s death, Bennett’s plans for his mausoleum were put on hold and in the end it was never constructed.

Bennett himself, surprisingly, settled down, but not until the age of 73, when he married Maud Potter, the widow of George de Reuter from the Reuters news agency. Five years later, in 1918, Bennett died, passing away at his luxury villa on the French Riviera. Bennett was buried in the Cimetière de Passy, in Paris, in a grave far more modest than the towering monument he’d once planned.

But did any of Bennett’s owls survive him? The spectacular, owl-festooned headquarters of the Herald outlasted Bennett by just three years, being demolished in 1921. Despite the effort and expense he’d put into the building, Bennett had only signed a 30-year lease on the land. When asked why the lease was so short, Bennett said, ’30 years from now, the Herald will be in Harlem and I’ll be in Hell!’ But even the New York Herald didn’t survive its energetic owner for long. It ceased publication in 1924, merging into the now-defunct New York Herald-Tribune, though its Paris edition lives on in the form of the International New York Times.

Statue of Minerva and her owl in New York’s Herald Square today. (Photo courtesy of Zeete)

The Herald Building might have long since disappeared, but some of Bennett’s owls still haunt New York. The statue of Minerva, her owl and the mallet-brandishing typesetters was saved and incorporated into a clock-tower-cum-memorial to Bennetts Jr. and Sr., which can be seen in Herald Square today. Behind the clocktower lurks a door, decorated with an owl perched on a crescent moon and the French phrase la nuit porte conseil, which roughly translates as ‘sleep on it’. The monument also features two of the owls that once embellished the Herald Building’s roof. Their eyes still flicker with an eerie green light, but the birds seem of little interest to the city dwellers, tourists and commuters who hurry by each day beneath. It appears that – for a man who was so ostentatious, influential and wealthy – not a great deal is left of James Gordon Bennett Jr.’s fame.

One of James Gordon Bennett Jr.’s rescued green-eyed owls, in Herald Square, New York. (Photo courtesy of Brecht Bug)

The mysterious owl seal behind the Bennett memorial in Herald Square. (Photo: nycscout)

I can’t help wondering, though, how this might have been different if White hadn’t been murdered and Bennett had succeeded in having his massive mausoleum built. Would Bennett’s owl-like tomb now be a macabre tourist attraction, with visitors from across the world gawping up at it or pointing from boats and bridges or queueing to enter the monument to see the famous chain-suspended coffin? Would the tomb perhaps be a morbid counterpoint to sights such as the Statue of Liberty and Empire State Building, a garish though intriguing memorial not only to James Gordon Bennett Jr., but to an entire age of excess?

(This article’s main image – showing one of James Gordon Bennett Jr.’s glowing-eyed owls – is courtesy of nycscout.)

The post New York’s Towering Owl-Shaped Tomb – a Decadent Monument of the Gilded Age appeared first on David Castleton Blog - The Serpent's Pen.

Physicians, alchemists and surgeons brimmed with praise for the substance. The philosopher and pioneering scientist Francis Bacon (1521-1626) declared ‘mummy hath great force in staunching of blood’. Robert Boyle (1627-91) – the ‘father of modern chemistry’ – believed mummia was ‘one of the most useful medicines commended and given by our physicians for falls and bruises’. Mummia, it was claimed, could heal sicknesses as diverse as coughs, ‘pungent pains of the spleen’, hysteria, diarrhoea, ‘inflammation of the body’ and epilepsy, as well as aiding childbirth. The French king François I (1494-1547) took a pouch with him everywhere containing a mix of mummia and pulverised rhubarb. François feared ‘no accident if he had a little of that by him’ and asserted his weird concoction could deal with headaches, stomach upsets and even fractured bones.

A jar for mummia from an 18th-century apothecary’s shop. (Photo: Bullenwachter)

But Europeans weren’t just content with making ointments from millennia-old mummies or swallowing their powdered remnants in wine. The art world also sought mummia out. Painters prized a pigment made from the substance called mummy brown. A rich brown hue – which fell between the shades of burnt and raw umber – mummy brown was said to be good for glazes, shadows, shading and (yes) flesh tones. Mummy brown was popular among the Pre-Raphaelites and was available in London art shops as late as the 1960s.

But how did the outlandish and revolting idea arise that ancient human flesh could soothe health problems? Was everybody always convinced of mummia’s curative properties and when did learned opinion start to doubt the drug’s wholesomeness? What well-known paintings feature the macabre substance and why did artists eventually stop daubing the remains of ‘priests and Pharaohs’ onto their canvases?

Read on to learn of paints made from pulverised French monarchs, of aristocratic parties at which mummies were ‘unrolled’ before enraptured audiences, and of a mysterious lifeforce some believed could be transferred from mummy to patient. Continue reading to find out why mummia’s critics condemned it as a ‘diet of dismal vampirism’ and how one compassionate painter even gave a solemn burial to a tube of mummy brown.

Did the Obsession with Mummia Arise from Translation Blunders and Scientific Mistakes?

The idea that mummies could be ground down into a cure-all drug is certainly a strange one. Though the Ancient Egyptians were mummifying humans and animals as long ago as 3000 BC, mummified remains didn’t become a feature of European medicine until the High Middle Ages. The craze for mummia seems to have at first evolved from a more innocent and – somewhat – less disgusting source: an interest in the medical properties of bitumen.

Bitumen is a naturally occurring, pitch-like mineral (a form a petroleum or asphalt) that bubbled up from a few spots in the Near and Middle East. The Greeks – and others in the Ancient World – believed bitumen had therapeutic qualities. Proclaimed as a treatment for conditions ranging from dysentery to toothache, bitumen was extolled by such weighty authorities as the Roman historian and naturalist Pliny the Elder and the Greek physician Pedanius Dioscorides. Arab and Persian doctors later used bitumen for ailments including cuts, bruises, bone fractures, stomach ulcers and tuberculosis. During the Crusades, European soldiers learned of the drug’s remarkable attributes, especially its efficacy in healing cuts and fractures. They carried this knowledge home, thereby making demand for bitumen soar. This – combined with the scarcity of the mineral – created a problem of supply. The few sites where the substance seeped from the earth – such as a mountain in Persia and the floor of the Dead Sea – were unable to satisfy the new European appetite for the medicine.

Natural bitumen collected from the shore of the Dead Sea – the original mummia? (Photo: Daniel Tzvi)

People, then, began to search for alternative sources of this rare – and increasingly costly – mineral. The Ancient Egyptians were known to have used bitumen as an embalming agent – they’d indeed applied it to their dead from the Twelfth Dynasty (1991-1802 BC) onwards.  The idea, therefore, arose that the commodity could be obtained by rifling ancient tombs and scraping the substance from their long-dead tenants.

The Arab physician, historian and philosopher Abd’ el-Latif al-Baghdadi (1162-1231) bears much responsibility for popularising this notion. Latif wrote of a substance that ‘in the belly and skull of these corpses is also found in great abundance called mummy’. (Mum or mumiya – the Persian word for bitumen – is where the English word ‘mummy’ comes from.) Although Latif stressed the term ‘mummy’ usually denoted bitumen that had oozed from the ground, he added, ‘The mummy found in the hollows of corpses in Egypt differs but immaterially from the nature of mineral mummy; and where any difficulty arises in procuring the latter, may be substituted in its stead.’ It seems Latif, however, confused the sludgy black liquid that occasionally seeps from embalmed corpses with the bitumen the Egyptians used as a preserving agent. In reality, the two are different substances.

Refined asphalt or bitumen – the Ancient Egyptians used ‘mummia’ of this sort to help preserve their dead. (Photo: Burger)

Some European writers and translators made a rather different error. Instead of, like Latif, believing that mineral bitumen could be salvaged from ancient mummies, they thought the health-giving ‘mummia’ was actually produced by the mummies themselves. The Italian translator Gerard of Cremona (1114-1187) erroneously defined the Arabic word mumiya as ‘the substance found in the land where bodies were buried with aloes by which the liquid of the dead, mixed with aloes, is transformed, and it is similar to marine pitch.’ In his translation of the 12th-century Arab physician Serapion the Younger, Simon Geneunsis (died 1303) wrote, ‘Mummia, this is the mummia of the sepulchres with aloes and myrrh mixed with the liquid (humidiate) of the human body.’ According to Matthaeus Platearius – a teacher at the medical school in Salerno and author of the popular herbal manual Circa Instans  – ‘Mummia is a spice found in the sepulchres of the dead … That is best which is black, ill-smelling, shiny and massive.’

Over time, these mistakes were compounded, with people coming to think of mummia as not just the hardened secretions of the corpse or its residues of bitumen, but as the dried embalmed flesh of the whole cadaver. Therefore, any Ancient Egyptian mummy could be ground down to make the in-demand drug. (The fact that mumiya in Arabic can mean both ‘the kind of bitumen used medically’ and ‘a bitumen-embalmed body’ may have added to this confusion.) The Italian surgeon Giovani da Vigo (1450-1525) described mummia as: ‘The flesh of a dead body which is embalmed, and it is hot and dry … it has virtue to heal over wounds and staunch blood.’

Such errors, not surprisingly, led to a scramble to acquire Ancient Egyptian corpses. The age-old dead became a prized commodity. Let’s take a look at how this gruesome trade manifested itself and how some mummia might not have been quite as ancient or authentic as those gulping it down or rubbing it on their wounds would have liked to believe.

The Heyday of Mummia and the Disreputable Trade in Medicinal Mummies

By the 1500s, merchants – Spaniards, Frenchmen, Britons, Germans and others – were making massive profits shipping mummies, whole or in parts, out of Alexandria and Cairo. Both Egyptians and foreigners ransacked tombs seeking the lucrative cadavers.

In 1586, the London merchant John Sanderson – an agent for the Turkey Company – described the hunting out of the precious sources of mummia: ‘We were let down by ropes, as into a well, with waxe-candles burning in our hands, and so walked upon the bodies of all sorts and sizes … they gave no noisome smell at all … I broke off all the parts of the bodies to see how the flesh was turned to drugge, and brought home divers heads, hands, armes and feet, for a shew: we brought also 600 pounds for the Turkie Company in pieces; and brought into England in the Heracles: together with a whole body: they are lapped in above a hundred double of cloth, which rotting and pilling off, you may see the skin, flesh, fingers and nayles firme, altered blacke. One little hand I brought into England, to shew; and presented it to my brother, who gave the same to a doctor in Oxford.’

The diarist Samuel Pepys wrote in 1668 of seeing an Egyptian mummy in London before it was ground into powder: ‘And so parted, I having seen a mummy in a merchant’s warehouse there, all the middle of the man or woman’s body black and hard. I never saw any before, and, therefore, it pleased me much, though an ill sight; and he did give me a little bit, the bone of an arme.’

A mummy dealer in Egypt, photographed in 1875

The demand for mummia was, however, so phenomenal that Egypt’s once plentiful reserves of ancient corpses were being depleted. The temptation was, therefore, great for traders to offer mummies of a much more recent vintage. As early as 1564, the French physician Guy de La Fontiane – who worked for the King of Navarre – examined around 40 mummies held by a Jewish dealer in Alexandria. La Fontiane found many had been manufactured from recently deceased individuals, such as executed criminals and slaves. The corpses had been coated and filled with bitumen then exposed to the sun to create mummified tissue.

Another merchant, when asked if any of his mummies had died of horrific illnesses, said he ‘cared not whence they came, whether they were old or young, male or female, or of what disease they had died, so long as he could obtain them … when embalmed no one could tell.’ Traders sometimes even sold non-human remains. Mummified ibises could masquerade as ‘mummified children’ while other mummies incorporated camel flesh. According to Pierre Pomet’s A compleat history of drugges (1712), some mummies were made from the sun-dried bodies of travellers who’d been caught in sand storms.

Despite the dubiousness of many of the mummies that reached Europe, much medical opinion remained enthusiastic about mummia. Two fistfuls of the powder could, apparently, help with epilepsy, vertigo and palsy. Mummia – soaked in wine and turpentine – could act as a ‘counter-poyson’  and guard against plague and ‘all manner of infection’. According to Bechler’s Parnassus Medicinalis (1663), ‘Mummy dissolves coagulated blood, relieves cough and pain in the spleen, and is very beneficial in flatulency and delayed menstruation.’

A wooden container for mummia from the collection of an apothecary, displayed in Hamburg Museum, Germany. (Photo: Christoph Braun)

The physician John Hall – the son-in-law of none other than William Shakespeare – treated a patient’s epilepsy by getting them to inhale the smoke of ‘a mixture of aromatic resin, powdered mummy, black pitch and juice of rue’. Catherine de Medici, the Queen Consort of France, was so convinced of the curative effects of mummia she sent her physician to Egypt in 1549 to obtain a supply. Among the many medical problems mummia was said to ease were withering and contractions of the joints, ‘hardness of the cicatrices’ (the scars of old wounds), catarrh, the marks left by measles, difficult labours and diseases of the head.

We might wonder why, beyond mummia’s association with bitumen, people ascribed such wondrous health benefits to ingesting powdered pieces of Egyptian cadavers. There seems to have been an idea that mummies contained a mystical lifeforce that could boost the vitality of ailing patients. This, no doubt, partly came from the widespread notion that the Ancient Egyptians had understood many occult secrets and mysteries of the cosmos, an understanding they particularly expressed through their rituals of death, mummification and burial. But there also seems to have been a more general idea that by consuming a being’s flesh, a person could take on that being’s attributes. Eating the meat of a bear, for instance, could give you something of that creature’s courage and strength. The influential 16th-century Swiss alchemist and physician Paracelsus propagated this notion and felt the principle also applied to our own species. He, however, recommended medicine made from fresh corpses rather than ancient mummies, stating, ‘If doctors were aware of the power of this substance, no body would be left on the gibbet for more than three days.’

A disciple of Paracelsus, Johann Schroder – physician, pharmacologist and the first person to recognise that arsenic is an element – entertained similar beliefs. Schroder advocated gulping down medicine made from ‘the cadaver of a reddish man (because in such a man the blood is believed to be lighter and so the flesh is better), whole, fresh without blemish, of around 24-years-of-age, dead of a violent death (not of illness), exposed to the moon’s rays for one day and one night.’ The flesh should be treated so that it ‘resembles smoke-cured meat, without any stench’. Oswald Croll – an alchemist and professor of medicine at the University of Marburg – stated that mummia wasn’t ‘the liquid matter which is found in Egyptian sepulchres’ but argued it should be acquired from ‘the flesh of a man that perishes a violent death’. He had a recipe for making the substance from the body of a young red-headed man who’d been bludgeoned on a breaking wheel, hanged and exposed to the air for several days. Croll recommended the flesh should be chopped into small pieces, sprinkled with powdered myrrh and aloes, marinated in wine then dried.

Some writers, on the other hand, felt the best medicine was procured from young ‘unsullied’ females. In the early 1600s, the physician Pietro de la Valle claimed the best mummia came from ‘maidens and bodies of virgins’. As late as 1824, the French writer and historian Jean-Baptiste-Bonaventure de Roquefort concurred with this opinion. In Shakespeare’s Othello, Desdemona’s handkerchief is ‘dyed in mummy which the skilful conserved of maidens’ hearts.’

Despite authorities stating that good mummia could be obtained in Europe itself, the mystic lure of Ancient Egypt was strong and recent European corpses were often passed off as originating from the land of the Pharaohs. The barber surgeon Ambroise Paré (1510-90)  – a royal doctor and one of the ‘fathers of modern surgery’ – exposed the production of fake mummia in France, finding that apothecaries had been stealing the corpses of executed convicts, putting them in ovens and selling the dried flesh. Paré also came across similar practices in Egypt. One merchant, who confessed to making mummies from the recently departed, expressed astonishment that Christians ‘so dainty-mouthed could eat the bodies of the dead’.

Many European Christians, though, were in agreement with the conman Paré interviewed, feeling mummia was a disgusting and dangerous medicine. Read on to learn of how Shakespeare and other playwrights disparaged the drug, of the doctors and preachers who ranted against it, and of how precious Egyptian mummies gradually came to be put to a more exhibitionistic use.

The Questioning of Mummia’s Health-bestowing Benefits, Shakespeare’s Disapproval and the Stripping of Mummies for Show

Paré admitted to administering mummia to at least a hundred of his patients, but he was to become critical of the medicine. He thundered against ‘this wicked kind of drugge’ that not only ‘doth nothing to help the diseased’ but could actually be injurious to the health, causing ‘many troublesome symptomes, such as paine of the heart or stomacke, vomiting and stinke of the mouth’. Paré stopped prescribing mummia and urged other doctors to do likewise. Renaissance scholars were also becoming aware of the translation mistakes that had sparked much of the enthusiasm for mummia. The French naturalist Pierre Belon (1517-1564) pointed out that when Arab physicians had written of mummia, they’d been referring to pissasphalt (mineral pitch or asphalt) rather than the scrapings of ancient corpses or the powdered remains of bodies dried in the sun. In 1597, the English herbalist John Gerard also stressed that ‘mummia’ was in reality pissasphalt and accused the translator of Serapion the Younger of describing the drug ‘according to his owne fancie’. In 1599, the preacher Richard Hakluyt lamented that ‘these dead bodies are the mummie which the Phisitians and Apothecaries do against our willes make us to swallow.’

The philosopher Sir Thomas Browne in 1658 launched a blistering critique of the trade in mummia: ‘The Egyptian mummies, which Cambyses or time hath spared, avarice now consumeth. Mummie is become Merchandise, Mizraim cures wounds, and Pharaoh is sold for balsams … Surely such diet is dismal vampirism; and exceeds in horror the black banquet of Domitian, not to be paralleled except in those Arabian feasts, wherein Ghouls feed horribly.’ In 1546, the German physician Leonhard Fuchs complained about people ingesting ‘the gory matter of cadavers received evidently from the gallows or the torture wheel, spotted with the faeces of corpses in place of aloes and myrrh.’

A distaste for mummia can also be found in Renaissance literature and drama. In Macbeth, Shakespeare – despite his son-in-law’s enthusiasm for the substance – has his witches add ‘witches’ mummy’ to their diabolical cauldron along with unsavoury ingredients like ‘gall of goat’, ‘eye of newt’, ‘tongue of dog’ and ‘finger of birth-strangled babe’. In James Shirley’s The Bird in a Cage (1633) a character exclaims, ‘Make a mummy of my flesh and sell me to the apothecaries’. In Ben Johnson’s Volpone, it’s also suggested that a body should be sold ‘for mummia, he’s half-dust already’. Perhaps the most gruesome mummia-related lines come from John Webster’s The White Devil:

‘Your followers

Have swallowed you, like mummia, and being sick

With such unnatural and horrid physic,

Vomit you up i’ th’ kennel.’

Despite the disapproval of certain physicians, writers and intellectuals, the medical use of mummia only declined gradually as more scientific and less mythical modes of thinking seeped into society. Mummia’s popularity may have also dipped thanks to suspicions the drug exacerbated plague outbreaks in the 1600s. Another factor may, however, have been changing notions regarding the value of Ancient Egyptian mummies and artefacts.

Towards the end of the 18th century, the colonial opening up of Egypt and advances in archaeology led to ‘Egyptomania’ – an obsession with Ancient Egypt that swept across Europe. Egyptian themes featured in operas, novels and plays; Egyptian designs appeared on crockery, jewellery and furniture; and Egyptian-influenced mausoleums – including miniature pyramid tombs – sprang up in churchyards and cemeteries. Mummies themselves became desirable possessions rather than primarily being seen as sources of a drug, a drug which was anyway viewed with more and more scepticism. Tourist trips to Egypt increased and many of these tourists were determined to bring back souvenirs of ancient pedigree. Bits of Egyptian mummies had long been considered collectable – as we’ve seen from the attitudes of Samuel Pepys and John Sanderson – and would sometimes form part of a gentleman’s ‘cabinet of curiosities’. In 1639, an observer described one such collection as containing two ribs of a whale, a preserved pelican, the hand of a mermaid and the hand of a mummy. But as Egyptomania took hold – especially following Napoleon’s invasion of the country in 1798 – this thirst for mummified artefacts intensified.

Victorian tourists relax in Egypt, around 1890

In his Egypt of the Pharaohs (1974), Brian Fagan reports that ‘diplomats and tourists, merchants and dukes, all vied with one another to assemble spectacular collections of mummies and other antiquities.’ This obsession resulted in ‘ferocious rivalry, and the competitors could frequently be seen clambering over stones and broken sarcophagi, rooting through rubble and bartering with boys whose pockets were stuffed with ancient remains.’ Egyptian entrepreneurs had once supplied mummies of dubious antiquity to Europeans eager to make medicine. Now local businessmen reacted to the tourist influx by scattering visitor hotspots with mummies and artefacts transported from elsewhere to make sure that no travellers left disappointed. In 1833, the French abbot Father Géramb commented, ‘It would hardly be respectable, on one’s return from Egypt, to present oneself without a mummy in one hand and a crocodile in the other.’

But mummies could have an even more bizarre use than decorating aristocratic houses or furnishing gentlemen’s curiosity cabinets. They could prove quite a social attraction as the centrepiece of ‘mummy unrolling’ occasions. These events would consist of an ‘expert’ – usually a doctor or academic – divesting a mummy of its bandages in front of a fascinated audience. The unwrappings could range from sober sessions in lecture rooms to little more than ghoulish sources of entertainment at private parties. Often the unrollings would be something in between, combining a concern for education and science with elaborate showmanship. Thomas ‘Mummy’ Pettigrew – a surgeon, author, antiquarian and treasurer of the British Archaeological Society – started unrolling mummies and conducting autopsies upon them in a lecture theatre in London’s Charing Cross Hospital. Soon, however, he was unwrapping the ancient cadavers at private gatherings and public exhibitions – events which almost always sold out and had people turned away at the door. By 1848, Pettigrew was thought to have unrolled as many as 50 mummies.

The Egyptologist and folklorist Margaret Murray and her team unwrap the mummy of Khnum-Nakht in front of 500 people in a University of Manchester lecture theatre in 1908.

These mummy-unrolling rituals weren’t limited to England. The French novelist and critic Théophile Gautier attended a mummy unwrapping in 1857. He noted the ‘faint, delicate odour of balsam, incense and other aromatic drugs’ and how ‘a vast quantity of linen filled the room, and we could not help wondering how a box which was scarcely larger than an ordinary coffin had managed to hold it all.’ Gautier was shaken by the mummy’s eyes: ‘two white eyes with great black pupils shone with fictitious life between brown eyelids. They were enamelled eyes, such as it was customary to insert in carefully prepared mummies. The clear, fixed glance, gazing out of the dead face, produced a terrifying effect; the body seemed to behold with disdainful surprise the living beings that moved around it.’ Théophile related how ‘little by little the body began to show its sad nudity … is it not a surprising thing … to see on a table, in still appreciable shape, a being which walked in the sunshine, which lived and loved 500 years before Moses, 2,000 years before Jesus Christ?’

A mummy unwrapping session in Cairo in 1886 – note the fashionable lady spectator

But if mummies had largely become objects of touristic enthusiasm or items to be plundered and carried back to Europe to be either unwrapped or displayed, what of the powder mummia? Did Europeans finally stop grinding up the ancient dead? Mummia did continue to have a function even though far fewer people swallowed it as a drug. To understand that purpose, we’ll need to look to the world of fine art.

Mummia as an Artists’ Pigment – the Burial of ‘Mummy Brown’ and Painting with Ground-up French Kings

For some time, European artists had been using a paint known as ‘mummy brown’ – a rich brown bituminous pigment. This paint – also called Egyptian brown and caput mortuum (dead man’s head) – seems to have been developed in the 16th or 17th century. It was made from myrrh, white pitch and – ground-up Ancient Egyptian mummies. As with medical mummia, however, high demand could result in less-than-authentic mummies being used. Sometimes the mummies of cats replaced those of humans; sometimes the bodies of recently deceased criminals and slaves found their way into the paint. On occasion, mummies from the Canary Islands substituted the Egyptian variety – the aboriginal people of the islands, the Guanche, had also embalmed their dead.

Opinions about mummy brown differed. Some artists felt it had good transparency and was good for glazes, shadows, flesh tones and shading. It was said to ‘flow from the brush with delightful freedom and evenness’. The pigment, however, varied in quality, with the paint from some batches prone to cracking. As mummy brown contained ammonia and particles of fat, it could sully other colours. One critic complained that ‘these crumbled remains of dead bodies’ were ‘more or less liable to injure the colours with which they may be united’ before concluding there was ‘nothing to be gained by smearing our canvas with a part perhaps of the wife of Potiphar, that might not be as easily secured by materials less frail and of more sober character.’

Liberty Leading the People by Eugene Delacroix (1830) might well have been painted with mummy brown.

The variability in mummy brown’s composition makes it difficult to know which paintings it appears in, but mummy brown was fashionable from the mid-18th to the late-19th century. Delacroix is known to have used it, the British portraitist William Beechey had stocks of the substance, and it was used by the Anglo-Dutch painter Lawrence Alma-Tadema, a friend of the Pre-Raphaelites. One work that made much use of mummy brown was Interior of a Kitchen (1815) by the French painter Martin Drolling. Drolling’s mummy brown is rumoured to have come from an astonishing source. The Royal Abbey of Saint-Denis (now in a Paris suburb) also served as a royal necropolis and almost every French monarch from the 10th century onwards had been buried there. After the French Revolution, the government ordered the destruction of the royal sepulchres. The royal bodies – some of which were exceptionally well-preserved – were yanked from their tombs, hurled into pits and covered with quick lime. But some workmen, apparently, couldn’t resist grabbing ‘souvenirs’. These mementoes allegedly included jaws, sections of skulls, nails, moustaches, Henry III’s teeth, Phillipe Auguste’s hair and an entire arm of Catherine de Medici. Some of the royal remains are said to have ended up transformed into mummy brown and – according to legend – Drolling daubed this very paint onto his canvas.

Martin Drolling’s Interior of a Kitchen (1815) – was it painted with mummy brown made from the corpses of French monarchs?

Mummy brown was popular with the Pre-Raphaelites, especially with Edward Burne-Jones (1833-98). It seems Burne-Jones was, however, using the pigment while unaware of its gruesome origins. According to a book by his widow Georgina, Burne-Jones had invited Alma-Tadema for Sunday lunch with his family. After the meal, the two men discussed colours. Georgina wrote, ‘Mr Tadema startled us by saying that he had lately been invited to go and see a mummy that was in his colourman’s workshop before it was ground down into paint.’ Burne-Jones scoffed at the notion that the pigment ‘had anything to do with a mummy’ and ‘said the name must only be borrowed to describe a particular shade of brown.’ When, Georgina maintains, Tadema managed to convince Burne-Jones the paint really was made from mummies, Burne-Jones ‘left us at once, hastened to the studio, and returning with the only tube he had, insisted on our giving it a decent burial there and then. So a hole was bored in the green grass at our feet, and we all watched it put safely in, and the spot was marked by one of the girls planting a daisy root above it.’

The Last Sleep of Arthur in Avalon by Edward Burne-Jones (1880-98), which was probably painted using mummy brown.

Another person present at the lunch was Georgina’s nephew, a young Rudyard Kipling. Kipling recalled Burne-Jones descending ‘in broad daylight with a tube of mummy brown in his hand, saying that he had discovered it was made of dead Pharaohs and we must bury it accordingly. So we all went out and helped – according to the rites of Mizraim and Memphis, I hope – and to this day I could drive a spade to within a foot of where that tube lies.’

The use of the pigment declined in the early 20th century as more artists – like Burne-Jones – learned of its unsavoury composition and respect for the historical, archaeological and cultural value of mummies increased. Mummy brown was, however, available to those who really wanted it for a surprisingly long time. This may have been due to the fact that large quantities of paint could be produced from just a few mummies. In 1915, one colourman stated that a single mummy had kept his customers supplied with the pigment for two decades. The famous colour-makers Roberson’s of London stocked the paint until the early 1960s though demand by that time was very low. In 1963, the firm had to remove the pigment from its catalogue because it had finally run out of mummies. ‘We might have a few odd limbs lying about somewhere,’ the director said, ‘but not enough to make any more paint. We sold our last complete mummy some years ago for, I think, £3. Perhaps we shouldn’t have. We certainly can’t get any more.’ Though you can purchase a modern pigment called mummy brown, it’s made of kaolin, quartz, goethite and hematite – with no taint of desiccated cadavers.

But what of the medical use of mummia? By the early 1700s, the drug’s popularity was in sharp decline. The English medical author John Quincy wrote in 1718 that although mummia was listed in medical catalogues, ‘it is quite out of prescription’. So does this mean that the mania for mummia, that the belief that ingesting ancient corpses can boost our health, belongs solely to a superstitious past? This doesn’t entirely appear to be the case. The substance could be found as late as 1924 on the price list of the large pharmaceutical company Merck & Co. Even more incredibly, in 1973 a shop in New York that sold ‘witches’ supplies’ was offering what it claimed was powered mummy. Although Ancient Egypt’s magic and mystique seem destined to haunt the Western consciousness for some time to come, let’s hope our obsession with this culture will never again focus on edible artefacts.

(This article’s main image is a photo from the excavation of King Tutankhamen’s tomb in 1923. The king’s mummy wasn’t ground up to make mummia or mummy brown.)

The post Mummia – How Ground Egyptian Mummy Cured All Ailments & Painted Masterpieces appeared first on David Castleton Blog - The Serpent's Pen.

The mausoleum – resembling a hulking Greek temple and surrounded by pillars capped with the memento mori emblems of eternal flames – is the resting place of the Russian aristocrat Baroness Elizaveta Demidoff. Elizaveta (Elizabeth) died on 8th April 1818 and was buried in Père Lachaise the next day. Though in life Baroness Demidoff was famed for her beauty and light-hearted humour, a sinister legend would grow up around her tomb. Elizaveta is said to lie in a glass coffin, but the legend goes well beyond this Snow-White-like detail. What’s really creepy is the claim that a very odd clause lurks in Baroness Demidoff’s will.

Baroness Demidoff’s tomb looms over the other graves in Père Lachaise Cemetery, Paris. (Photo: Luca Borghi)

The will is said to promise a fortune – one million francs, some maintain; others assert as many as five million, equivalent at the time to about a million dollars – to any person brave enough to endure an especially gruesome ordeal. To earn this money, the person would have to spend 365 days and 366 nights alone with Baroness Demidoff in her tomb. Any such candidate would be forbidden all human contact for the duration of the trial. And – just to make the experience even grimmer – the tomb’s walls and ceilings are rumoured to be lined with mirrors. Wherever the contender looked, the sight of the baroness’s body in her crystal casket would assail them.

The legends claim several courageous, or at least greedy, individuals have taken up the challenge. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the same legends state none were able to see it through. After – in most cases – just a few days, contenders were pummelling the tomb door, begging to be let out. Some suffered mental breakdowns or heart attacks; others swore they’d felt a vampire-like entity draining their lifeforce.

But who exactly was Baroness Elizaveta Demidoff and how did these outlandish stories become attached to her? Did her will really lay down such a macabre challenge? What might the strange symbols and occult numbers carved on her tomb mean and why do some people associate them with the vampiric? Let’s investigate below.

The Colourful Life and Early Death of Baroness Demidoff

Baroness Elizaveta Alexandrovna Stroganova entered the world on 5th February 1779 in St Petersburg, Russia. She was born into one of the nation’s wealthiest families, a family that had risen from peasant origins to become landowners, traders and industrialists, making much of their money from salt and fur. This increase in social status was further boosted when Tsar Peter the Great (reigned 1682-1725) bestowed on them the title of Barons of the Russian Empire.

Elizaveta acquired a reputation as a beautiful and beguilingly light-hearted young woman. A number of portraits were made of her, which collectors still prize. At 16-years-old, she married Nikolay Nikitich Demidoff. Nikolay, born in 1773, was from an extremely rich family of industrialists that had acquired their cash from copper, silver and gold mines and iron foundries. He became a diplomat and the couple were posted to Paris.

Portrait of Baroness Demidoff as a child

They both enjoyed life in the city, but Paris especially suited Elizaveta’s outgoing lively nature. Nikolay, in contrast, was more reserved and focused much of his attention on increasing his family’s fortune, obsessing over how to modernise their industrial operations. The Demidoffs had four children, with two – Pavel and Anatoly – surviving to adulthood. Anatoly was destined to continue the family’s social rise – he’d have the title of Prince of San Donato bestowed on him by the Italian government and would marry Napoleon’s niece Mathilda.

During their years in Paris, Nikolay and Elizaveta became admirers of Napoleon Bonaparte, but in 1805 increasing tensions between Napoleon’s regime and Russia led to Nikolay being redeployed. The family spent some years in Italy before the Tsar recalled them to Russia in 1812. Nikolay and Elizaveta settled in Moscow, but – due to the differences in their personalities – they separated shortly after their return. Nikolay remained in the Tsar’s service and would fight against Napoleon in spite of the esteem in which he held the French Emperor. He’d later gain the post of Russian ambassador to the Court of Tuscany. In 1827, Grand Duke Leopold II granted Nikolay the title of Count of San Donato – a mark of gratitude for Nikolay’s role in establishing a silk factory there.

Portrait of Baroness Demidoff – a woman famed for her beauty and lively character

After separating from her husband, Baroness Demidoff moved back to her beloved Paris, but she died there in 1818 at the age of just 39. She was buried in the newly fashionable Père Lachaise Cemetery, which had only opened in 1804 to relieve pressure on overcrowded Paris churchyards. Elizaveta’s mausoleum was originally located in Division 39 of the vast necropolis, but was later moved to the 19th.

Elizaveta’s husband Nikolay Demidoff

So Elizaveta appears to have led a privileged, often enjoyable, but in many ways unremarkable life for a woman of her time and social position. She’s known to have died wealthy, but gossip claimed she was perhaps a little nutty towards the end. Her real fame, however, came after she passed away, thanks to the lurid rumours that circulated about her last will and testament, rumours that would make it into both the French and international newspapers.

The Strange Will of Baroness Demidoff, the Macabre Challenge to Spend a Year in Her Tomb and the ‘Vampiric Symbols’ on Her Mausoleum

Most of what we know about the strange and morbid will of Baroness Demidoff comes from articles in the 19th century press. These articles – some of which refer to the Baroness as a ‘countess’ or even a ‘princess’ – outlined how those taking up her challenge had to follow certain rules. The will, we are told, forbade ‘all visitors. The candidate must be alone with the dead for a whole year before the whole $1,000,000 is won.’ Though a servant would bring ‘meals regularly to the watcher’ and would carry away the bucket containing their bodily waste, any attempts to communicate with this employee were strictly forbidden. The contender was allowed to leave their gloomy lodgings once a day ‘to stroll among the tombs for an hour’. But – to make sure no human contact could be achieved – this walk had to be undertaken after the necropolis’s gates had closed for the night or before they opened in the morning.

The newspaper reports emphasised the horror of passing so much time in such proximity to the corpse of Baroness Demidoff. ‘The princess lies in a crystal coffin,’ one article stated, ‘Thus, the whole body is distinctly visible, and this is what causes so much fright to all who have as yet attempted to gain the prize.’ Another journalist described how ‘the body of the princess, according to legendary report, lies in a crystal coffin, in a wonderful state of preservation’, stressing that ‘in order that the man or woman who might undertake the long watch should never lose sight of it, and during the whole year and a day have his thoughts constantly occupied with the deceased princess, the walls and ceiling were lined with plate-glass mirrors, so that, whichever way the watcher might turn, he or she would always be confronted by the spectacle of the dead Princess in her glass coffin.’

How, then, might the watcher have achieved any respite from this grisly display? Though contenders were forbidden to distract themselves with any sort of work, books and newspapers were permitted. Such material could be read by ‘the funeral light at the head of the coffin’. But what would happen to the candidate if, in a moment of weakness, they attempted to talk to the meal-bearing servant or sneak over the cemetery walls? We’re told that ‘in the case of any of these stipulations being violated, the watch was to recommence, or all hope of inheriting the million francs be abandoned.’

Despite these rigorous demands, there was no shortage of applicants willing to go through the ordeal. An article in a Chicago newspaper stated, ‘Several Frenchmen have essayed to win the prize, but all have given up after a short trial. One lasted out nearly three weeks, by which time he had completely lost his reason and still remains a jabbering idiot. The will makes no mention of foreigners being ineligible; there is every chance, therefore, for a strong-minded American who fears neither ghosts, ghouls nor gravestones to become rich in the short period of 365 days. Applications to be made to the municipality of Paris.’

Letters indeed flooded in from across the world. ‘Though applications to watch by the coffin of the Russian Princess came from all parts of Europe, and even North and South America,’ one article related, ‘Belgium seems to have furnished the largest number of intrepid individuals willing and anxious to sit for a whole year beside the glass coffin.’ Would-be contenders included ‘an old soldier, occupying the post of night watcher in a factory’ who ‘declared he would certainly earn the million francs if the conservator of the cemetery would only admit him into the tomb of the Princess’ and ‘a young shepherd of Laekesles-Bruxelles’. This young man ‘was in such a hurry to commence the watch that would make him rich and enable him to marry the girl he loved, that he begged the conservator of Père Lachaise to indicate the day and hour at which he might present himself.’ A letter from an American, which still exists, earnestly requests ‘please tell me if this is a bona fide offer’ before adding ‘if it is, please consider me an applicant of these requirements at once’ then signing off ‘And greatly obliged – yours very truly, J.H. Davis.’

It wasn’t only men who were prepared to endure a gloomy year in the presence of Baroness Demidoff’s remains. An article expressed surprise at ‘the number of widows who presented themselves for the interminable watch … they disguised their desire to become rich with the supposed Princess’s million francs under all sorts of excuses. They wanted the money for this and that praiseworthy object – to help a friend, to provide for a daughter etc., and one even went so far to declare that if she earned the money she would found a home for orphans.’

Even newspaper reporters themselves, including those working for respectable journals, seem to have been seduced by the prospect of the Baroness’s fortune. One article related how ‘a journalist on Le Temps seriously enquired with whom the money had been lodged, and whether he was quite sure to receive the million if he succeeded in accomplishing the watch.’

The parade of people presenting themselves to undertake the ordeal grew as the story of Baroness Demidoff’s will spread. One American newspaper described how applicants ‘began to bombard the officials in Paris and our ambassador with letters seeking information and so numerous were these enquiries that the prefect of police had to hire another clerk, the city fathers had to increase their secretaries, and Mr Eustice had to call in the extra hall man at the embassy to open the communications that arrived from all parts of North America.’ Some would-be contenders tried to bribe officials with presents or with cuts of the prize money.

Most who attempted the challenge, however, are said not to have lasted long before screaming to be let out. Tortured by the inescapable presence of the Baroness’s corpse – and haunted by its incessant reflection in the mirrors all around them – few endured for more than a fortnight. One man is alleged to have gone totally insane, another to have died of a heart attack soon after his release. Others felt their vitality being drained, with one sensing his very life was seeping from him. Some contenders claimed to have ‘heard unearthly and mysterious sounds’ or to have ‘been struck with horror and fear by ghostly apparitions’. Certain candidates suspected the tomb was a portal leading to hell while others came out covered in scratches and bruises. Even present-day visitors to Père Lachaise have reported feelings of unease and emptiness around the mausoleum and strong urges not to linger nearby. It’s been theorised that Baroness Demidoff may be some sort of ‘energy vampire’, with the challenge in her will a means of providing her with victims so she could feed off their lifeforce.

The strange design of the Baroness’s tomb has also stimulated ideas about her ‘vampirism’. The mausoleum boasts carvings of bats and of wolves’ heads, with the wolves rumoured to guard the Baroness’s body during the daytime. The tomb also bears a carving of a knot – thought to depict the Knot of Hercules, which symbolises the binding together of the states of life and death. The date of Baroness Demidoff’s demise is also believed to be significant. She died on April 8th, 1818, and the number eight – with its interconnected loops – is said to be an emblem of infinity when laid on its side. Or it could represent the eternal ouroboros – the cosmic snake biting its own tail. It’s claimed three eights are to vampires what three sixes are to the Devil or that eight is a number of occult initiation, with nine being the number of the accomplished adept.

A wolf’s head on Baroness Demidoff’s tomb in Père Lachaise Cemetery, Paris – a daytime guardian of the vampire princess? (Photo courtesy of Guilhem Vellut)

There’s also the tomb’s location within Père Lachaise Cemetery. It sits on the Alley of Acacias. The acacia plant is a symbol of resurrection, immortality and initiation, frequently found in Freemasonry. The Baroness’s tomb also lies on the Path of the Dragon – the name Dracula stems from the word meaning ‘dragon’ or ‘devil’ in the Romanian language. Baroness Demidoff’s body is said to face the setting sun, which also has – apparently – some vampiric significance, and it’s alleged her corpse doesn’t show any signs of decomposition. In modern times, there are those who have attempted to film inside the tomb – through a cross-like opening in its door – and who claim to have captured the eerie movements of some florescent figure or a glowing demonic face.

There’s no doubt that the newspaper reports about Baroness Demidoff appeared and that people did send letters asking to take up her challenge. But how much truth actually was there in these journalistic articles, what did the Baroness’s will really say, and – if not vampirism – what could explain the extremely odd decorations on her tomb? Keep reading and we’ll try to find out.

How Much Truth Is There in the Sinister Legends of Baroness Demidoff’s Bizarre Will and ‘Vampiric Tomb’?

For some time, people have tried to explain the weird contents of the Baroness’s will and the strange legends surrounding her. It’s been suggested that the stipulations in her last will and testament came from a fear of being interred in her mausoleum alive. A terror of live burial was common in the 18th and 19th centuries. Medical advances in the understanding of coma-like states had led people to realise it was possible for one to appear dead, be buried then wake up underground or sealed in the tomb.

These fears can be seen in fiction like Frankenstein and Dracula – books which obsess over the blurry boundaries between death and life and the dark possibilities of reanimation – as well as in the stories of Edgar Allan Poe. Some coffins were fitted with bells and flags, enabling people who suffered overhasty burial to signal to those on the surface. Or the ‘dead’ were buried with loaded pistols so they could end their anguish if it turned out a terrible mistake had occurred. Might Baroness Demidoff’s will have been an attempt to lure a watcher who could raise the alarm if he saw movement in her crystal coffin? Were the mirrors to make sure any such stirrings wouldn’t be missed?

This argument – considering the widespread fears of the time – might be compelling, but it’s unlikely to be accurate. As mentioned above, most of our knowledge of Baroness Demidoff’s will comes from newspaper reports and an analysis of these soon provides a simpler explanation. The dark fairy tale of the glass-coffined princess in Père Lachaise Cemetery appears to have sprung from nothing more than the 19th-century equivalent of ‘fake news’.

The greatest giveaway is the date of the articles. Research by Chris Woodyard – author of the Victorian Book of the Dead – has found that the earliest printed reference to the Baroness’s morbid myth crops up in the Chicago Daily Tribune on 25th October 1893. The Tribune’s short article claims that ‘five years ago a Russian princess died leaving a large fortune’ before going on to give details of the glass coffin, a five-million-franc reward and the requirement for anyone who wanted this cash to remain in the mausoleum for a year. Immediately, we can see an issue – the article implies the baroness died in 1888 when in fact she passed away in 1818.

The Chicago Daily Tribune article was picked up by newspapers in the United States, in France and throughout the world, leading to a deluge of letters from those willing to endure the ordeal. Another Chicago newspaper – probably the Chicago Herald – published an article on November 15th 1893 also stating the ‘Russian Princess’ had died five years earlier. When the American J.H. Davis wrote his charming letter – also in 1893 – asking to undertake the challenge, he enclosed ‘an article from the Chicago Herald to the effect that one million dollars are left by a Russian Princess to the person who will watch her tomb for the space of one year.’

Even at the time, it didn’t take most of the press long to see through the hoax around Baroness Demidoff’s will. Articles were published around the world giving details of the legend then thundering against the fraud it had sprung from. In January 1894, the San Francisco Morning Call denounced the story as ‘a very grim hoax’. The New Zealand Herald, on 17th February 1894, wrote, ‘How this story got circulated, no one knows, not even the conservator of Père Lachaise Cemetery, who has used every effort to discover its author. To put an end to the fable and to the streams of letters, he has sent notes to the journals contradicting the story, but they have not yet met with so much credence as the legend of the Princess’ million.’ In April 1894, the Boston Herald published  ‘A Bogus Special about the Will of a Princess’, stridently condemning ‘a certain Chicago newspaper as the cause of all sorts of emotions and of semi-diplomatic annoyances to the American embassy, to the prefecture of police and to the municipality of this great capital.’ This lamentable news item, the Boston Herald tells us, had aroused ‘the ambition of all the cranks in the country’.

A quiet lane in Père Lachaise Cemetery, Paris (Photo courtesy of Peter Poradisch)

I can’t help wondering, however, if these articles – which devoted more space to describing the macabrely fantastical legend than debunking it – didn’t increase the myth’s popularity and keep the torrent of letters from eager candidates gushing in. In 1896, Baroness Demidoff’s grim fame received fresh impetus from an article in Le Temps, which depicted the story in the manner of a morbid fairy tale. Even years later, the legend would surge into the popular consciousness from time to time. In 1932, the Emporia Gazette described how ‘some time last August an ex-soldier arrived at the cemetery and solemnly announced that he had come to win the million francs offered … his advent, so the authorities have informed reporters, was the beginning of a veritable procession of adventurers all equipped with the same tale and paraphernalia and all eager to pass a year in the tomb of the Russian Princess … Not only this, but letters have been received by the cemetery authorities from persons in Morocco, Tunisia, the Sudan and Indo-China, who desire to undergo the ordeal. Those who have appeared at the cemetery in person, although carefully interrogated by the authorities, have either declined or refused to divulge the source of their information.’

So it appears that the legend of Baroness Demidoff’s will was likely a creation of a journalistic pen (or typewriter) to provide content on a slow news day – a short article that then caused an unexpected sensation around the globe, memories of which lingered in the collective imagination for decades. There is, of course, the possibility that the articles may have been based on oral folklore that had grown up around the Baroness’s tomb, but there’s no way of proving this. As for the Baroness’s will itself – the document that would clear much of this speculation up – no one seems to know where it is or what is says. A figure with the wealth and social status of Baroness Demidoff would have likely left a last will and testament, but there is (perhaps mysteriously) no surviving record of it.

But what about the vampiric symbols on Baroness Demidoff’s tomb? The tomb does bear unusual emblems, though some of these – like hammers and depictions of small creatures, probably weasels – are references to the sources of the Demidoff family wealth in the metalworking and fur industries. The wolves’ heads function as water-spouting gargoyles and though bats are an unusual and somewhat sinister choice of tomb ornamentation, they’re not totally unheard of – another mausoleum in Père Lachaise is decorated with the creatures. The eights in the Baroness’s death date – as records show – simply refer to the day she died. As for the tomb’s location on the Path of the Dragon and Alley of Acacias, the case for any deliberate siting of the tomb on these thoroughfares must be weakened by the fact the tomb was moved from the 39th Division of Père Lachaise to the 19th. There’s also nothing in what we know of Baroness Demidoff’s life or her upbeat personality to suggest any dabblings in the darker aspects of the occult, let alone vampirism.

Hammers and weasels – representing the Demidoff’s sources of wealth – on Baroness Demidoff’s tomb in Père Lachaise Cemetery. (Photo: Guilhem Vellut)

Spooky and atmospheric Victorian-era cemeteries do, however, have a strange capacity to attract otherworldly legends. A vampire was once rumoured to lurk in London’s Highgate Cemetery while another vampire panic took place in Glasgow’s Southern Necropolis. In Hollywood Cemetery, Richmond, Virginia, a tomb is rumoured to be decorated with vampiric signs and emblems, rather like the Baroness’s resting place. In London’s Brompton Cemetery, a striking Neo-Egyptian mausoleum is said to be either a Victorian time-travelling contraption or a teleportation device.

Mausoleums in Père Lachaise Cemetery, Paris (Photo courtesy of Mrs Teepot)

Whether or not Père Lachaise Cemetery contains a glass-casketed vampire princess – or whether or not you dare to peer into or hang around Baroness Demidoff’s mausoleum – the necropolis is certainly worth a visit. As well as being Paris’s largest cemetery, it’s the city’s biggest park. Paths thread pleasantly through the tree-shaded, landscaped grounds – grounds full of the most fascinating and beautiful tombs. Père Lachaise is like a history book of marble, granite and earth, hosting the graves of numerous cultural figures, such as Jim Morrison, Oscar Wilde, Édith Piaf, Honoré de Balzac, Sarah Bernhardt, Max Ernst, Gertrude Stein and Guillaume Apollinaire. But one of the graveyard’s most famous tombs – whether as the result of press sensationalism or something more supernatural and sinister – will always be the imposing mausoleum of the Russian baroness who made her eternal home in the French capital.

(This article’s main image – showing Baroness Demidoff’s tomb in Père Lachaise Cemetery – is courtesy of Guilhem Vellut.)

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This perplexing and ominous tomb isn’t the only aspect of what’s known as the Richmond Vampire legend. Not far from the graveyard is an old railway tunnel that has long been seen as ‘unlucky’ or ‘cursed’. The Church Hill Tunnel – built in the early 1870s – was notoriously prone to flooding, cave-ins and subsidence, problems so severe that they led to rumours the Richmond Vampire liked to skulk down there, with the evil around the creature generating many of these mishaps. On 2nd October 1925, a disastrous cave-in occurred, with tons of rock and soil crashing down on a work train, killing, trapping and wounding several labourers. Shortly after the catastrophe, eyewitnesses saw a horrific creature running from the tunnel’s end – with fanglike teeth and rolls of decomposing flesh hanging from its body. The creature is said to have sprinted into Richmond’s Hollywood Cemetery and disappeared into the mausoleum of W.W. Pool.

But is this really what happened during the Church Hill Tunnel collapse? Who might the ‘vampire’ who dashed from the tunnel have been? What do we know about the ‘life’ of W.W. Pool before his entombment and how might vampire stories have become attached to him? And what of the reports of ‘occultists’ and ‘Satanists’ gathering around his mausoleum? Let’s begin by examining the strange legend of the Church Hill Tunnel disaster.

A Catastrophic Cave-in in the Church Hill Tunnel and a Hideous Sighting of the Richmond Vampire

The Church Hill Tunnel was built by the Chesapeake and Ohio Railroad company (C & O) in 1873. The 1,200-metre (4,000-foot) tunnel – one of the longest in the US – burrowed 4,000 feet under Richmond’s Church Hill district and was assailed by problems from the start. Richmond’s soft blue marl clay has a tendency to shrink then swell in response to fluctuations in rainfall and groundwater, a fact which – during the tunnel’s construction – led to multiple cave-ins and 10 worker deaths. The tunnel remained so troublesome throughout its working life – with water seepages, safety worries and a tendency to cause buildings on Church Hill to tilt and kink – that in the 1890s a decision was made to replace it with a three-mile, double-track railway viaduct. The viaduct – which extended along the James River, easing past Hollywood Cemetery, Downtown Richmond and Church Hill – was completed in 1901 and in 1902 the tunnel closed.

Inside the eastern entrance of the Church Hill Tunnel – was the tunnel a hideout of the Richmond Vampire? (Photo: Jkmscott)

The Church Hill Tunnel, which soon grew dilapidated, stayed shut for over twenty years. But by the 1920s – with Richmond’s population and economy expanding – the C & O realised they needed extra railway capacity so in 1925 the company decided to restore and enlarge the unlucky tunnel. Though every engineering firm consulted thought such plans hairbrained, C & O’s own technicians approved the tunnel as safe and work soon commenced. A series of minor cave-ins, however, took the lives of 12 workers. On October 2nd 1925, a work train and around 200 workmen were in the tunnel, about 160 yards from its western end. Their job was to clear dirt by loading it onto the steam train’s flatcars. As the crew laboured away, a brick fell from the tunnel’s ceiling, slamming onto one of the train’s 10 wagons. The workmen knew this was an ominous signal and, sure enough, more bricks crashed down, severing electrical cables, cutting the lights and plummeting the tunnel into darkness. ‘Watch out, Tom, she’s a-coming!’ Benjamin Mosby – the train’s burly 28-year-old fireman – shouted to his engineer.

Panic buzzed through the black tunnel and workers began swarming towards the exit, stumbling and tripping over railway sleepers and each other, convinced Mosby’s prediction would soon prove accurate. In the mayhem, according to certain accounts, some workers pulled out their knives, slashing desperately at anyone in their way. Suddenly a whole section of the tunnel collapsed. 190 feet’s worth of soil plunged towards the crew, triggering an immense cave-in that spread along most of the tunnel’s length, buckling roads and swaying buildings on the surface. Most of the workmen dived under the train’s flatcars and – crawling beneath them – managed to get out of the tunnel’s eastern end. Shocked labourers poured from the entrance, hobbling with injuries, smeared with dirt and blood, gashed with cuts and gouged with wounds. Then, from among this throng of disorientated workers, there’s alleged to have appeared the most horrendous sight.

A creature staggered into view, spattered with gore and streaked with blood. This entity seemed partially decomposed, with rolls of skin hanging from its naked muscular torso and swollen arms. Fresh blood smeared the creature’s cheeks, neck and mouth, a mouth which hung open to reveal jagged fanglike teeth. Unlike the terrified men around it, the creature showed no indication of shock or concern. Accounts claim the ghoul then dashed in the direction of nearby Hollywood Cemetery. A group of men chased it, but couldn’t catch the fleet-footed monster. They did, however, pursue the creature closely enough to see it disappear into a mausoleum – that of the infamous W.W. Pool.

Some say the pursuers then tried to enter the tomb, but accounts disagree concerning what happened next. One version of the legend has the men jimmying open the door just in time to see a coffin lid closing. Another story insists they found the tomb locked from within and – despite their numbers and strength – were unable to open it. Yet another tale states the vampire screamed curses from inside the mausoleum – presumably so petrifying they caused the men to back off. Ominously, the description of the entity – with folds of skin hanging from its partially decayed flesh – would be consistent with the decomposition expected of a body treated with the burial practices of the time after about two-to-five years. Pool had been placed in his mausoleum three years previously. Some also say that, as the vampire emerged from the tunnel, he muttered something about his wife – and it’s known that Pool shared his mausoleum with his spouse.

Such narratives, unsurprisingly, have led to the notion that the Richmond Vampire was involved in the Church Hill Tunnel disaster. Some believe the vampire, angry at the disruption the engineering works were causing to his underground hangout, caused the tunnel’s collapse. He then gorged himself on the bodies of dead and injured workers, tearing and sucking with his fangs – hence the blood his mouth was smeared with – before fleeing the hazardous tunnel and hotfooting it back to his tomb.

But what really happened during the Church Hill Tunnel catastrophe? Was the apparition seen staggering from the entrance really the Richmond Vampire? Read on and we’ll find out.

What Really Happened with the ‘Richmond Vampire’ and the Church Hill Tunnel Disaster?

A more sober look at the evidence shows the vampire’s appearance during the Church Hill Tunnel disaster in quite a different light. Just before the cave-in, fireman Benjamin Mosby had been shovelling coal into the engine’s furnace. It was common for firemen engaged in such tasks – due to their intense labour and the fire’s heat – to work without a shirt. When the tunnel collapsed, it caused the train’s steam tank to explode. Mosby was struck with a tsunami of steam and scalding water, making his skin peel off in rolls while the force of the explosion flinging him back inflicted further injuries and smashed his teeth.

Mosby, however, managed to escape the engine, crawl beneath the train and stumble out of the tunnel. When he staggered from the entrance, it seems the severe shock he was in made him strangely calm. He asked that his wife be contacted and told he was alive and not to worry. Mosby then collapsed. Workers laid him on a nearby embankment and poured water over him in an attempt to soothe his terrible pain. Bystanders noted that swathes of his blistered skin had fallen away in ‘flaps measuring up to four inches in width’ and that he also had lacerations from crawling under the train and several broken teeth. Mosby was assured his message would be relayed to his wife. A taxi took him to Grace Hospital, where he died within 24 hours.

Interestingly, Mosby was laid to rest in Hollywood Cemetery, though certainly not in W.W. Pool’s mausoleum. Among Richmond working men at the time, apparently, a slang term for dying was ‘going to Hollywood’, a reference to the city’s famous necropolis.

Mosby wasn’t the only fatality the Church Hill Tunnel cave-in caused. Though Mosby was the only man who made it out of the tunnel to have died, others weren’t able to escape. The duty roster listed three men, including the train’s engineer – one Thomas Joseph Mason – as missing. In an attempt to find any lingering survivors or recover bodies, C & O dug down from the surface, getting to the train eight days after the collapse. They reached Mason’s cabin – his corpse was found upright in his chair, pinned into place by the engine’s reverse lever. At that point, the company chose not to go on with the rescue effort, citing the cost ($30,000 dollars in modern money) and the fact the rescue attempts had triggered more cave-ins. Their decision may have also been influenced by the fact that the other two missing men – Richard Lewis and H. Smith – were African-American casual labourers. There may well have been more itinerant workers – some have speculated as many as six – trapped in the Church Hill Tunnel as record keeping of such people in those days could be scanty. Whoever was left was destined be entombed in there, along with the locomotive and its 10 flatcars. In spring 1926, the Virginia State Corporation Commission, which regulated the state’s railroads, ordered the tunnel’s western end sealed for safety reasons.

The sealed western end of Richmond’s Church Hill Tunnel. (Photo: Eli Christman)

So it seems the part of the Richmond Vampire legend centred on the Church Hill Tunnel was based on the death of Benjamin Mosby. The skin hanging from the body, the blood, the ‘fangs’, and even the vampire’s apparent ‘calm’ and utterance about his wife all chime with Mr Mosby’s horrendous experience. Though newspaper reports of the accident at the time seem to have been factual – the taxi that took Mosby to hospital had just carried a journalist to the scene – it’s likely that over the years memories of the incident became distorted into something even more sinister. The fact Mosby was buried in Hollywood Cemetery and the workers’ slang phrase ‘going to Hollywood’ might have later fed into an evolving belief linking the ‘vampire’ that emerged from the tunnel with that graveyard. The vampire’s dash for the necropolis may be a garbled retelling of some accounts that claimed Mosby at one point tried to run towards the James River.

But what of the myth’s other component – W.W. Pool, his alleged vampirism and his creepy mausoleum in Hollywood Cemetery? Let’s see what we can find out about this elusive character.

Was W.W. Pool the Richmond Vampire?

Legend states that W.W. Pool was run out of England for vampirism, but it appears Pool was born in Mississippi around 1847. William Wortham Pool was the son of Samuel Pool, a merchant, and by 1860 William was employed as a clerk in the state capital, Jackson. Later in the 1860s, Pool moved to Virginia, working as a clerk in a tobacco factory in the Richmond suburb of Manchester then as a bookkeeper and private secretary. He became a well-established Richmond accountant, often working for the influential Bryans, a family of newspaper publishers. Pool married his wife Alice in 1866 and they had four children. His wife passed away in 1913, but Pool lived on until the age of 75, dying of pneumonia in February 1922. The only mildly spooky incident connected with Pool’s death was the fact his close friend, one Samuel Owens, died on the same day. Owens – Manchester’s commissioner of revenue – had, along with Pool, been a prominent member of Richmond’s Central Methodist Church and had attended the same Freemasons’ lodge. Active in civic affairs, Pool appears to have been a person of some local influence in his later life. Shortly after his death, he was described as ‘one of the oldest and most widely known residents of South Richmond’.

The mausoleum of W.W. Pool in Hollywood Cemetery, Richmond, Virginia – the tomb of the Richmond Vampire? (Photo: RVA all day)

So how did the outlandish Richmond Vampire legend come to weave itself around W.W. Pool, a man who appears to have led an exceptionally normal and respectable, if moderately successful, life? It’s possible that the seeds of some of the rumours were planted thanks to the elaborate funerals of Pool and Owens, funerals which included full Masonic rites. The Richmond News Leader reported: ‘Today is a virtual holiday in this section (Southside) of the city, owing to the funeral services of W.W. Pool and Samuel R. Owens, two of the most distinguished citizens of Southside. Representatives from practically all the public offices, hustings court and banks and persons from all walks of life attended the funeral of Mr Pool this morning … and the same large crowd will pay the last tribute of respect to Mr Owens this afternoon.’

Most of the vampire hysteria around Pool is, however, likely to have come from his tomb. The mausoleum’s only inscriptions are the name ‘W.W. Pool’ and the year 1913. There was a biblical quote – Isiah 11:6 – ending with the phrase ‘and a little child shall lead them’, but the slab bearing this inscription fell off a few years ago. There’s been speculation that the W’s resemble fangs, that the lack of a clear birth and death date suggests Pool is immortal, and that the ‘child’ referred to in the Isiah quote is either a small vampire or one of the ‘children of the night’. Anyone with a little historical knowledge could explain such things away. Tombs of the time often lacked birth and death dates, elaborate inscriptions or even names – part of the sense of thriftiness Pool’s generation was known for. (Unnecessary words would mean paying the stone mason extra.) Pool had the tomb constructed for his wife, hence it being chiselled with the year of her death, and seems to have left no instructions to add any more engravings when he was placed within. The Isiah quote was likely just inspired by Pool’s Methodist beliefs and the observation the W’s resemble fangs is just too silly to have much comment expended upon it.

There is, though, perhaps something eerie about Pool’s mausoleum with its Neo-Egyptian design, something that makes it stand out in a cemetery where the more conspicuous tombs tend to have Greco-Roman influences. Nods to Ancient Egypt do make people think of things spooky, mummified and magical and of the questing for immortality. (The presence of a large pyramid, unconnected to Pool, in the centre of Hollywood Cemetery has likely also added to this mysterious ambiance.) The Egyptian design of Pool’s tomb was probably inspired by nothing more than the widespread interest in Ancient Egyptian archaeological finds in the 19th and early 20th centuries, an interest perhaps made more intense in Pool’s case by his Masonic leanings. One intriguing legend the Pool mausoleum has generated, however, is that the signatures on the tomb’s land records – first inscribed by Pool then by others – are all in exactly the same handwriting.

Pyramid commemorating Confederate soldiers killed in the Civil War in Hollywood Cemetery, Richmond, Virginia. (Photo: David Broad)

But when might the legends around W.W. Pool’s tomb have arisen, what factors might have influenced them, and what of the sinister reports of occultists and Satanists congregating around Pool’s resting place? Let’s investigate below.

What Could Explain the Strange Rumours of the ‘Richmond Vampire’ and the ‘Occult Activities’ around the Tomb of W.W. Pool?

Spooky historic cemeteries do have a tendency to generate vampire legends. A famous outbreak of vampire hysteria occurred around London’s Highgate Cemetery in the 1970s while in the 1950s hundreds of youngsters invaded Glasgow’s Southern Necropolis searching for a child-eating vampire who’d apparently taken up residence there. It’s also interesting that the Richmond Vampire legend is linked to the dangerous working conditions of the Church Hill Tunnel. Hazardous and unpleasant working environments can give rise to a strange brand of industrial folklore. Glasgow’s vampire rumpus was connected with a steelworks that sparked and smoked just behind the necropolis and tough conditions at Pittsburgh steel mills helped create the myth of Joe Magarac, a giant superhuman steelworker who stirred vats of molten metal with his hands and rescued workmates from industrial accidents.

But, with regards to the Richmond Vampire, perhaps an institution lying close to Hollywood Cemetery was responsible for much of that legend’s fame. The graveyard is adjacent to Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU) and the idea a vampire slept in the necropolis seems to have spread among the students in the late 1950s and 1960s. Stories circulated of strange occurrences in the cemetery, especially after night-time adventures spent sneaking into the graveyard. Such stories were likely fuelled by that period’s vogue for horror films and the appearance of various kinds of undead creatures on late-night TV. (And many who were students in the 1960s would have grown up watching 1950s vampire movies.) As the 1960s wore on, the over-active imaginations of some undergraduates may have also been enhanced by the psychedelics widely consumed in that era. The Richmond Vampire myth established, it seems to have been handed down to new generations of students over the decades.

The tendencies of VCU students to creep into Hollywood Cemetery to visit the tomb of W.W. Pool may reflect a phenomenon known as ‘legend tripping’. ‘Legend tripping’ is a kind of rite of passage in which – usually young – people visit sites associated with supernatural or traumatic events. Such sites might include tunnels, ‘haunted houses’, the locations of accidents, and – most commonly – graveyards. These visits give youngsters a chance to prove their courage in front of their friends, to gain a sense of adventure and to feel they are – at least temporarily – flouting adult rules and norms. A widespread example of legend tripping in the United States centres on graveyard seats and benches. Legends claim those sitting on these ‘Devil’s chairs’ at certain times, such as midnight or Halloween, will invite death or curses upon themselves or even get to see or speak to the Evil One. In the case of the Richmond Vampire, it’s easy to see how excitable students – minds swarming with horror movie images and perhaps buzzing with LSD – might have enhanced, popularised or even invented that myth. It’s possible that legends of the Richmond Vampire were around before VCU students became obsessed with the creature, but the first known mention in print of the Richmond Vampire story doesn’t appear until 1976 – in VCU’s Commonwealth Times newspaper.

Virginia Commonwealth University’s Egyptian Building – did this institution’s students amplify the Richmond Vampire legend? (Photo: Crazyale)

But what, we might ask, of the component of the legend dealing with the Church Hill Tunnel collapse? The collapse occurred in 1925 so – even though the ‘vampire’ was just the unfortunate Benjamin Mosby – wouldn’t this give the Richmond Vampire legend an earlier origin? Some argue, however, that the tales of the Church Hill Tunnel disaster and the ‘vampiric’ W.W. Pool were not combined until quite recently. The first known text that weaved together these two narratives didn’t appear until 2001, online. Since then, numerous articles and blogposts have combined the two stories and their amalgamation received a boost in 2007 with the publication of the book Haunted Richmond: The Shadows of Shockoe. This book is the first known example of the meshing of these two stories in print. It is, of course, possible that oral folklore had merged the two narratives earlier, but there’s no firm evidence this was the case.

Whatever the roots of the Richmond Vampire legend, the myth has certainly inflamed the public imagination. Hollywood Cemetery staff have reported that kids and tourists appear regularly at their office asking earnestly if there’s a vampire in the graveyard. More disturbingly, there have been accounts of occult activity around W.W. Pool’s mausoleum. In the 1980s, the tomb’s door was prised open and ‘occult words and symbols’ were scrawled on the walls. Fetishes are frequently left by the mausoleum’s gates. Hollywood Cemetery officials even took the decision to move the remains of Pool and his wife from the tomb as people were allegedly stealing parts of their bodies.

Others, though, doubt that serious Satanists and occultists have been congregating at Pool’s mausoleum. The Richmond paranormal investigation group Night Shift wrote, ‘The story of occultists visiting the crypt every Halloween is not likely … the cemetery in Richmond, Virginia, is known to have a better than common security staff. If they visited on any kind of timetable, they would most certainly be apprehended … our experience with occult groups indicates that they rely heavily on ritual. This casts doubt on the theory of randomised visits … making it a more likely target of young college students proving their nocturnal machismo to their friends.’

College students may even be to blame for the thefts of bits of Pool’s body. The 1976 Commonwealth Times article stated, ‘Mr Pool is an alleged vampire. There seems to be a cult in Richmond that has grown up around him. I find this strange since I’ve heard that it used to be the ‘in’ thing among medical students to break in and steal parts of his remains.’

So it seems that Pool’s now dilapidated mausoleum never housed a vampire, that it no longer even houses Pool’s corpse, and that the ‘Satanists’ drawn to the tomb may be simply over-excited college students. Hollywood Cemetery is still, however, worth a visit. Its 130 bucolic tree-filled acres contain the tombs of two US presidents – James Monroe and John Tyler – as well as the grave of Confederacy president Jefferson Davis. There’s also the resting place of a teacher of Edgar Allan Poe – who hailed from Richmond – as well as the tombs of a couple of Pulitzer Prize winners. A 90-foot stone pyramid commemorates over 18,000 confederate soldiers buried in the cemetery. But anyone searching for a genuinely spooky experience in connection with the Richmond Vampire legend might be better advised to stray closer (but not too close) to the old Church Hill Tunnel.

The neo-gothic tomb of President James Monroe in Hollywood Cemetery, Richmond, Virginia. (Photo: ɱ)

The tunnel’s western entrance – plugged with concrete – stands close to the corner of 18th and Marshall Street. Though the eastern end is theoretically accessible, it’s in a state of dangerous disrepair. Surrounded by a small swampy jungle, the eastern mouth beckons ominously near the intersection of E. Franklin Street and N. 31st. Over the years, more portions of the tunnel have collapsed, with one of the largest cave-ins causing mayhem above, demolishing several houses and a church wall. Dips can be discerned in some streets that cross the tunnel’s path. The parts of the tunnel that haven’t caved in contain high water levels and a gritty, quicksand-like silt, making exploration hazardous.

The eastern entrance of the Church Hill Tunnel, Richmond, Virginia. (Photo: Jkmscott)

In June 2006, the Virginia Historical Society and other organisations, including the History Channel, announced an intention to recover the train – which they planned to preserve – as well as any bodies the tunnel held. They were, however, forced to put this project off until ways could be found to shore up the tunnel against further collapses. There was also the possibility that disturbing the Richmond Vampire’s old lair could lead to houses on Church Hill being swallowed by enormous sinkholes.

Whether or not the tunnel is ever opened again, people walking near it have claimed to hear disturbing noises: digging sounds, screams of ‘Get me out! Get me out!’ and even the screech of locomotive wheels.

(This article’s main image, showing the tomb of the alleged Richmond Vampire W.W. Pool, is courtesy of RVA all day.)

The post The Richmond Vampire – Virginia’s Tunnel-Haunting Nosferatu appeared first on David Castleton Blog - The Serpent's Pen.

This wooden casket – depicting the enigmatic face of a woman – is adorned with winged gods and hieroglyphs, their colours vibrant almost 3,000 years after being painted. You might be tempted to pause, to stare at the artefact. But maybe, after some time, though you wouldn’t want to yank away your gaze, you might become aware of a disturbing feeling, a mix of foreboding and fascination that grows more ominous the longer you look. Prickles could pass over your skin, your heart start to rap. Reluctantly, but thankfully, you might then haul away your eyes and drift on to other exhibits, but your weird encounter with the mummy case, and perhaps thoughts about its occupant, might linger for hours, days afterwards, cropping up in your dreams and invading quiet moments.

You wouldn’t be the first to feel this way. This object – given the identification number 22542 and currently displayed in room 62 of the museum – is at the centre of an extraordinary tangle of London folklore. Known as the ‘Unlucky Mummy’, this cursed artefact is said to have brought death, illness, injuries, bankruptcies and deep unhappiness to many who came into contact with it. It’s said to have smashed glass, spookily distorted photos, and created strange nocturnal lights and eerie footsteps in the houses it was kept in.

The Unlucky Mummy displayed in the British Museum (Image courtesy of amanderson2)

After its donation to the British Museum, the Unlucky Mummy caused more deaths and accidents. Night-time knockings, shrieks and moans reverberated from the case. One legend asserts the Unlucky Mummy’s ghost travelled down secret passageways to haunt two London Underground Stations and was responsible for the disappearance of two women at one of those Tube stops. Some stories even maintain the mummy was on the Titanic and that it was the mummy’s curse that sank that famous ship. It’s claimed the Unlucky Mummy is the corpse of an Ancient Egyptian princess, who was also a priestess of the powerful sun god Amen-Ra. The potent magic and occult knowledge she learnt in this role allegedly made sure that all those responsible for removing her from her tomb and keeping her from her resting place were pursued and punished.

But where exactly did the Unlucky Mummy come from and how did it find its way to the British Museum? Could there be any truth in the outlandish stories attached to the artefact and – if not entirely accurate – where might these tales have originated? Read on to learn of ominous warnings from palm readers, of Victorian seances in the British Museum’s Egyptian Room, of the beginnings of lurid tabloid journalism, and of the tragic misfiring of shotguns in the marshes of the Nile.

The Ominous Legend of Amen-Ra, the British Museum’s Unlucky Mummy

A number of similar, but varying, stories tell of how the Unlucky Mummy was discovered, brought to England and ended up in the British Museum. Below is an attempt to weave these legends into a coherent narrative.

These accounts centre on one Thomas Douglas Murray (1841-1912), a wealthy Oxford graduate, author, horse breeder and amateur archaeologist. Fascinated with all things Ancient Egyptian, Murray had been in the habit of frequenting Cairo and exploring Egypt. It’s said that as a young man, Murray visited the palmist and astrologer Count Louis Hamon, otherwise known as ‘Cheiro’. The moment Cheiro took hold of his customer’s right hand, he’s reputed to have experienced foreboding and great fear, feeling that the hand would one day be separated from its owner. The palmist had visions of the hand drawing a valuable prize and of a succession of calamities following this event.

Most stories state that in the 1860s – though some place the occurrence as late as the 1880s – Murray travelled to Cairo with two companions. There they met an Arab who showed them the coffin of a freshly excavated mummy. Murray was enchanted with the well-preserved casket, dazzled by how wonderfully it was decorated in gold and enamel and by the queenly features of the young woman depicted on it. Examining the casket more closely, Murray concluded its hieroglyphs stated that the woman was a princess and high-priestess of Amen-Ra. Not only that, but the picture writing declared the princess herself was named ‘Amen-Ra’ after the god she followed. All three Englishmen yearned to purchase the splendid artefact and the Arab was eager to sell. The friends agreed that they’d draw lots and that the winner would then get to bargain for the coffin. Murray won, negotiated the relic’s price and had the case packed up and sent to England that evening.

The Unlucky Mummy, the notorious cursed exhibit of the British Museum

The Englishmen next headed up the Nile to enjoy some duck shooting. But Murray’s gun exploded, injuring his right arm. He hurried back to Cairo to seek medical attention, but his progress was hampered by weirdly powerful headwinds. What should have been a straightforward journey took 10 days and by the time Murray made it to Cairo gangrene had infected the wound. To halt the disease’s spread, his arm had to be amputated. After Murray had recovered somewhat, the three decided to return to England. Before they set off, however, they heard disturbing rumours about the man who’d discovered Murray’s mummy in Luxor. He’d either died shortly after touching its bandages or had walked off into the desert in a daze never to be seen again. Two Egyptian servants who’d handled the mummy case – and been somewhat disrespectful towards its occupant – would be dead within a year and another servant who’d cracked a joke about the mummy would meet his doom even more quickly.

On the voyage back to Britain, both Murray’s friends died and were buried at sea. On reaching his London house, and feeling far from well himself, Murray saw that the mummy’s casket had been unpacked and was waiting for him in the hallway. Rather than being struck by the beautiful craftsmanship that had so bewitched him in Cairo, Murray now sensed the artefact emanated an ancient malignity. Murray couldn’t shake the notion that an atmosphere of foreboding and evil had settled on his house. Some say that during this time Murray – who had an interest in spiritualism – was visited by the Russian occultist and founder of the Theosophy movement Madame Blavatsky (1831-91). Blavatsky immediately felt ‘an evil influence of incredible intensity’. On being asked if she could exorcise the Unlucky Mummy, Blavatsky said, ‘There is no such thing as exorcism. Evil remains evil forever. Nothing can be done about it. I implore you to get rid of this evil as soon as possible.’

Murray was, then, probably relieved when a journalist writing an article about him asked to borrow Amen-Ra’s casket. Soon after the Unlucky Mummy entered her house, her mother tumbled down some stairs and died. The journalist’s fiancé broke off their engagement, her prize dogs went mad and she became ill. She sent Amen-Ra back to Murray.

Murray, perhaps somewhat unethically, palmed the Unlucky Mummy off on a friend, a Mr Wheeler. Wheeler was deluged by misfortunes and soon died broken-hearted. Before his death, Wheeler had passed the mummy on to a married sister. Amen-Ra’s arrival in her house heralded an inevitable string of unfavourable events, but she was still fascinated enough by the casket to take it to a Baker Street studio to have it photographed. She was horrified to learn that ‘when the plate was developed, although the negative had not been touched in any way, it was seen that there looked out the face of a living Egyptian woman, whose eyes stared furiously with an expression of singular malevolence.’ Not long afterwards, the photographer died suddenly and his son suffered an accident during which he was badly cut. When a man who’d purchased one of his photos of Amen-Ra brought it into to his house, every piece of glass in his home shattered. Another photographer unwise enough to take a picture of the Unlucky Mummy smashed his thumb and his assistant – while adjusting the camera – fell and cut his face.

The next time Wheeler’s sister met Murray, she poured out this list of gruesome goings-on. Finally realising it was unfair to keep lumbering his acquaintances with Amen-Ra, Murray suggested donating the mummy to the British Museum. But this proposal didn’t lessen Amen-Ra’s malice. Murray asked a friend, an Egyptologist, to organise the transfer of the mummy to the museum. This man couldn’t resist arranging for the coffin to have a stopover at his house so he could study it. He soon died, with a servant confiding that his master hadn’t slept since the Unlucky Mummy had entered his home. The carrier who brought the case containing Amen-Ra to the British Museum died within a week. While transporting the Unlucky Mummy, his truck hit and trapped a pedestrian as it reversed and a worker who helped unload the artefact broke his leg.

Victorian visitors examine Ancient Egyptian artefacts in the British Museum.

When Amen-Ra was put on display, the problems didn’t end. Nightwatchmen and cleaners reported poltergeist-like phenomena, with tappings, hammerings, moans and sobs coming from the casket. A journalist covering Amen-Ra’s story took a photo of her coffin in its glass display case. Again, the photograph revealed a woman’s face glowering with hatred. After showing the horrifying image to Sir Ernest Wallace Budge – the museum’s Keeper of Egyptian and Assyrian Antiquities – the journalist went home, locked himself in a room and shot himself. Others who dared to photograph or sketch the exhibit also suffered misfortunes. A nightwatchman died as did the child of a visitor who flicked a cloth at the Unlucky Mummy. One museum employee claimed that one evening at dusk he’d seen a figure suddenly sit up in the bottom half of the casket. A being with a hideous yellow face then glided towards him in a repulsively smooth motion. Thinking the entity was going to push him down a nearby trapdoor, the man sprang forward and the apparition vanished.

Sir Earnest A. Wallis Budge, Keeper of Egyptian and Assyrian Antiquities at the British Museum

According to the ghost-hunter Robert Thurston Hopkins, Budge grew increasingly worried by such reports and tried moving the Unlucky Mummy to see if this would help. Some accounts claim he sent Amen-Ra to the basement. During the Unlucky Mummy’s removal to the cellar, a man sprained his ankle and a week later the manager who’d supervised her demotion died in the museum at his desk. Most stories, however, state that Amen-Ra was simply moved from the display case she shared with other exhibits to a more prestigiously positioned case of her own. Her new home was completed with a flattering explanatory label. After this, it’s said, the disturbances became less dramatic and less frequent although for decades night cleaning staff reported ghostly appearances around the case and feelings of dread and terror emanating from it. As for Thomas Douglas Murray, the man who started all the trouble with his rash purchase of the Unlucky Mummy in Cairo, his problems didn’t cease after the British Museum accepted Amen-Ra. As the years passed, Murray’s fortune was whittled away and he died – bankrupt and in poverty – in 1912.

A Merging of Mummy Tales, Lashings of Journalistic Embellishment and a Seance in the British Museum’s Egyptian Rooms

Records indeed show the artefact that became known as the Unlucky Mummy was presented to the British Museum by a Mr A.F. Wheeler on behalf of a Mrs Warwick Hunt of Holland Park in 1890 (Wheeler’s married sister?). This, however, immediately throws doubt on the assertions Wheeler died soon after Murray had given him the mummy.

What appears to have happened is that accounts of the ‘Unlucky Mummy’ became meshed with tales of an entirely different Egyptian artefact that Murray had heard about. Murray came across the story of an Englishwoman who’d acquired an Egyptian mummy and displayed it in her drawing room. The morning after she’d installed it, she entered the room to find everything smashed. She moved the mummy to another room, only to have that room’s contents pulverised too. The mummy was exiled to the attic, but this didn’t halt the weird goings-on. That night, weighty footsteps tramped up and down the stairs, accompanied by eerie flickering lights. The following morning, all the lady’s servants quit.

This tale seems to have ignited Murray’s imagination. It’s unclear to what extent Murray really was involved with the purchase of the Unlucky Mummy and its journey to England. Some sources state he had no association with the object whatsoever until it ended up in the museum while others claim he bought Amen-Ra from an American millionaire collector of antiques, called James Carnegie. Carnegie was a patron of the famous German archaeologist Heinrich Schliemann, who may have discovered the Unlucky Mummy during a dig. Whatever the truth, Murray – excited by the tale he’d heard and knowing Amen-Ra had recently been gifted to the British Museum – went to examine (or re-examine) the institution’s new artefact. He was accompanied by his friend, the famous – some would say notorious – journalist W.T. Stead.

The two men – both of whom had a deep interest in spiritualism – felt the face painted on Amen-Ra’s casket had an extremely sad look, going so far as to conclude ‘the expression on the face on the cover was that of a living soul in torment.’ This prompted Murray to contact the museum to ask if he and Stead could hold a seance in the Egyptian Section to attempt to contact the Unlucky Mummy’s spirit. According to Budge, ‘they wished to hold a seance … and to perform certain experiments with the object of removing the anguish and misery from the eyes of the coffin-lid.’

Mummies and other artefacts in the British Museum’s First Egyptian Room

W.T. Stead (1849-1912) was one of the first investigative journalists, whose style foreshadowed much of the shock, outrage and hyperbole that would characterise 20th-century tabloid-style reporting. He was also one of the earliest media figures to recognise that journalism could sway public opinion and as editor of The Pall Mall Gazette he ran a number of controversial campaigns.

The most famous of these was centred around a series of 1885 articles entitled The Maiden Tribute of Modern Babylon, which dealt with child prostitution. To prove the problem of child prostitution existed, Stead set up the ‘purchase’ of one Eliza Armstrong, the 13-year-old daughter of a chimney sweep. The first instalment in the four-part series warned that the next issues of The Pall Mall Gazette were certain to sell out. Stead was proved right – copies were swapped for 20 times their normal price, 10,000 customers besieged the Gazette‘s offices and the demand was so phenomenal the Gazette even ran out of printing paper. Though considered a hero by many for exposing this trade, Stead was sent to prison for abduction – on the ‘technical grounds’ that he hadn’t first obtained ‘permission’ for his purchase from Eliza’s father. He served three months in Coldbath and Holloway jails. His journalism, nevertheless, helped pass the Criminal Law Amendment Act of 1885, which raised the age of consent from 13 to 16. The bill was dubbed by many the ‘Stead Act’. Stead’s campaign against child prostitution is said to have inspired George Bernard Shaw’s Pygmalion and even influenced Robert Louis Stevenson’s Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde.

The journalist WT Stead in later life. Did he help invent the Unlucky Mummy myth?

Stead pioneered the use of enormous attention-grabbing headlines and inserted maps and diagrams to break up lengthy articles. He’d also incorporate eye-catching subheadings and did much to popularise the use of interviews, in which he’d sometimes mingle his own opinions with those of his subjects. His lurid descriptions of life in London’s slums pressured the government into appointing a Royal Commission, which recommended the slums should be demolished and low-cost housing put up. Stead also campaigned against brothels and gambling dens and badgered the government into the disastrous decision to send the eccentric General Gordon to protect British interests in the Sudan. As Stead’s career progressed, he became more interested in and committed to the peace movement, covering the Hague Peace Conferences of 1899 and 1907 and advocating for a ‘United States of Europe’ and ‘High Court of Justice among the Nations’ (ideals that foreshadowed the United Nations and EU). Stead was a repeated nominee for the Nobel Peace Prize.

Another, more controversial, obsession was spiritualism. Stead published a spiritualist magazine, Borderland, and maintained he was able to communicate with his deputy editor by means of telepathy and automatic writing. Stead also claimed to have acquired a spirit guide, one Julia A. Ames, an American temperance campaigner and journalist Stead met in 1890 shortly before her death. Though many Victorians lambasted spiritualism as superstitious nonsense, plenty more were fascinated by it and ouija boards and seances were fixtures of many polite drawing rooms. We had, then, the potent mix of a massively successful and influential journalist, the Victorian obsession with spiritualism and table tapping, and spooky rumours concerning Ancient Egyptian artefacts. (A craze for all things Ancient Egypt was another feature of the Victorian epoch.) This combustible concoction seems to have resulted in the birth of an explosive legend.

For any journalist at the time, the idea of a night-time seance being conducted in the British Museum’s Egyptian Rooms – with a table ringed by earnest figures surrounded by mummies and painted caskets and sombre gods – would have made excellent copy. And the unfortunate fact the museum turned down Murray and Stead’s request didn’t stop such articles being printed. The first appears to have been written by Stead himself and other excitable journalists soon picked up the story, with each likely adding in more sensationalist details in the hope of shifting newspapers. Their articles tended to merge the tormented soul of Amen-Ra’s mummy with the crockery smashing relic of the Victorian drawing room and to put this together with the idea of the aborted seance and other legends of Ancient Egyptian curses. The public lapped it up and an intriguing myth was soon in circulation.

We might wonder why Stead and Murray decided to propagate such a yarn. Both men were then in their forties, well-established and not in desperate need of funds. It seems that their profound spiritualist beliefs spurred them to make their claims about Amen-Ra’s curse. They may have hoped an outlandish story would capture the attention of those sceptical about the paranormal and lead them to an interest in spiritualist practices. If their aim was to publicise such beliefs, they succeeded as the story became widely popular, was retold frequently and resonated for years. Much of this popularity would, however, be aided by an unexpected incident, an incident that would involve W.T. Stead in the most tragic way imaginable. The myth of the Unlucky Mummy would become entwined with another story destined to assume the proportions of legend – the sinking of the Titanic.

Did the Unlucky Mummy Sink the Titanic?

One of the most fascinating claims about the Unlucky Mummy was that it was responsible for sinking the Titanic. Apparently, the British Museum had reached the point where it could no longer tolerate the spooky goings-on around the mummy and the artefact’s curse continually injuring or picking off its staff. The decision was made to try to offload the mummy and an American collector agreed to buy Amen-Ra. Her new owner packed her up and booked a passage for himself and his new possession on a ship to the States – a ship that just happened to be the infamous Titanic. This luxurious liner, the largest ship afloat at the time, hit an iceberg then went down in the early hours of 15th April 1912 on her maiden voyage from Southampton to New York. The tragedy resulted in 1,517 deaths, mainly due to insufficient lifeboats and confused and disorganised evacuation procedures.

The Titanic setting out from Southampton – did the Unlucky Mummy’s curse sink the ship?

So was this the end of Amen-Ra? Did she sink to the bottom of the North Atlantic’s cold waters, a place from which even her powerful magic would struggle to exert its malignant influence? Apparently not, according to some versions of the story. During the chaotic scramble for the lifeboats, amidst the cries of ‘women and children first’, the collector paid a bribe to have himself and his mummy stowed in one of these lifesaving crafts. After bobbing on the night-time waves, Amen-Ra – along with the surviving passengers – was rescued by a ship named the Carpathia and completed her journey to the New York.

Inevitably, however, the Unlucky Mummy was soon causing mayhem and misery at the home of its American owner so he decided to send her back to Britain. This, for some reason, was done via Canada, aboard a liner called the Empress of Ireland. After setting out from Quebec City, the Empress collided with a Norwegian coal ship on 29th May 1914 on the St Lawrence River. The Empress sank so quickly there was only time to launch seven of her 40 lifeboats and 840 people went down with the vessel to a watery doom. Amen-Ra, perhaps unsurprisingly, avoided this fate and ended up being placed on yet another liner, the Lusitania. Off the Old Head of Kinsale, Ireland, on 7th May 1915, the Lusitania was torpedoed by a German submarine. Almost 1,200 died and this time, it’s said, Amen-Ra sank with them.

A different version of the legend states Amen-Ra did indeed go down with the Titanic and that she’ll curse anybody who dares disturb her undersea tomb. Dark mutterings of this hex were supposedly heard among the crew on a failed 1980 expedition to locate the Titanic’s wreck.

But was the Unlucky Mummy really on the Titanic and did she finish up floating down to the ocean’s bottom? Records exist for the cargo that sailed with the Titanic, a fascinating list including feathers, hatters’ fur, auto parts, rabbit hair, elastics and early refrigeration gadgets, but absolutely no mummies, cursed or otherwise. The best evidence, however, that Amen-Ra didn’t end up in the chilly Atlantic depths is the fact you can still see her today, secure and dry, in a glass display case in the Egyptian Section of the British Museum. So how did this outlandish tale of the Unlucky Mummy on the Titanic come about?

Again, it appears W.T. Stead was to blame. Stead did travel on the Titanic – he was heading to the States because President Taft had invited him to address a peace conference at New York’s Carnegie Hall. Stead couldn’t resist entertaining the other passengers with the macabre tale of the Unlucky Mummy. He’s said to have begun his narrative during an 11-course dinner party on Friday 12th April and to have drawn it out until after midnight as his listeners sat rivetted.

On the night the iceberg struck, however, Stead had retired to bed early at 10.30 pm. Witnesses observed him helping women and children into the lifeboats and in an act ‘typical of his courage, generosity and humanity’ giving his life-jacket to another passenger. He was spotted calmly reading a book in the first-class smoking room as the Titanic went down, but a survivor, Phillip Mock, recalled him later clinging to a raft with the American business magnate John Jacob Astor IV. ‘Their feet became frozen,’ Mock said, ‘and they were compelled to release their hold. Both were drowned.’ Spookily, Stead had written an article in 1886 and a story in 1892 about the calamities that could result from ships having insufficient lifeboats and hitting icebergs. Stead’s tragedy was compounded by the fact it was widely believed he was due to be awarded 1912’s Nobel Peace Prize.

Luxury on the Titanic – inside the doomed ship’s Turkish baths

The notion the Unlucky Mummy was on the Titanic appears to have come about from an article published in the New York World a few days after the ship’s sinking. The article contained an interview with a survivor – one Frederic Kimber Seward – who mentioned Stead telling his creepy story. It seems that, over time, the accounts of Stead’s presence on the Titanic and the story he narrated morphed into a belief that Amen-Ra herself had travelled on the vessel. From there, it would be just a short logical hop to assume such a famous cursed artefact had caused the ship to sink.

The Unlucky Mummy’s Killing of an Over-Inquisitive Journalist and Amen-Ra’s Haunting of a London Underground Station

Even before the Titanic catastrophe, Amen-Ra had been getting quite a reputation. As mentioned above, much of this had to do with the embellishments of journalists and one of the most famous, and tragic, to have researched the Unlucky Mummy was Bertram Fletcher Robinson. A dashing up-and-coming editor and reporter, Robinson began with the intention of debunking the far-fetched stories that had grown up around Amen-Ra. The more he investigated, however, the more he became convinced the curse was real. In 1904, an article by Robinson – A Priestess of Death – appeared on the Daily Express front page. In it, Robinson ominously wrote, ‘It is certain that the Egyptians had powers which we in the 20th century may laugh at, yet can never understand.’

A few years later, Robinson was commissioned to write a longer article for Pearson’s Magazine, which had the same owner as the Express. As Robinson pried deeper into the secrets of Amen-Ra, his friends – aware of the disasters that had befallen those who’d dared meddle with the mummy – voiced concern. One such friend was Sherlock Holmes author Arthur Conan Doyle, who Robinson had shown around his native West Country when Doyle was researching legends of phantom black dogs for his Hound of the Baskervilles. Doyle stated, ‘I warned Mr Robinson against concerning himself with the mummy at the British Museum. He persisted …’

In January 1907 – before he could finish his article – Robinson died at the age of just 36. Much of his research did, however, end up in an article Pearson’s eventually published in August 1909. In the same piece, Doyle set forth his ideas about Robinson’s death. ‘I told him he was tempting fate by pursuing his enquiries,’ Doyle darkly stated. ‘The immediate cause of death was typhoid fever, but that is the way in which the elementals (nature spirits) guarding the mummy might act.’

Bertram Fletcher Robinson, who held editorial positions with Vanity Fair, the Daily Express and Granta. Was he killed by the Unlucky Mummy’s curse?

The Pearson’s article might be the source of – or at least be responsible for amplifying – much of the mythology around the Unlucky Mummy. The article mentions the photographer capturing Amen-Ra’s glowering face and the loss of an arm while duck shooting on the Nile. The piece, however, has the owner of the mummy dying in Cairo while we know that Murray (assuming these people were one and the same) didn’t pass away till 1912. It’s possible that the owner of Pearson’s Magazine took advantage of Robinson’s untimely death and resurrected the old mummy myth to shift copies of his publication. Throwing in quotes from the famous Arthur Conan Doyle likely did no damage to the magazine’s bottom line. Doyle could be credulous. A Freemason and committed spiritualist, he was convinced the escapologist Harry Houdini had supernatural powers, despite Houdini continually denying he possessed such attributes. Doyle was also duped into believing fairies supposedly photographed in Cottingley, Yorkshire, were real and – along with W.T. Stead – wrongly claimed two stage magicians, Julius and Agnes Zancig, had psychic abilities.

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle in 1893 – a believer in the curse of the British Museum’s Unlucky Mummy

An even more bizarre story about the Unlucky Mummy claims she haunted a London Underground station. British Museum Station – a now abandoned Tube stop that served the institution of the same name – was reputedly connected to the museum by a secret passageway. The ghost of Amen-Ra would progress down this tunnel at night sporting a loincloth and magnificent headdress. She’d terrify passengers and staff with horrendous, unearthly shrieks, shrieks said to have resulted from the trauma of being ripped from her tomb and brought many miles to a strange land. Her anguished howls would reverberate down corridors and along tracks, seriously disturbing all who heard them.

Was British Museum Underground Station haunted by the Unlucky Mummy’s ghost?

Thanks to the opening of Holborn Station – less than 100 metres away – in 1906, British Museum Station became less and less frequented (unless it was the ghost frightening people off). It was announced that British Museum Station would close in 1933 and – shortly before it shut – two British newspapers offered a cash reward to anyone brave enough to spend a night alone there. Nobody took up the challenge.

Some claim the legends of the haunting of British Museum Station were sparked by a film, a comedy thriller called Bulldog Jack. In this movie, a secret tunnel leads from a London Underground station to the British Museum, where it emerges from an Egyptian sarcophagus. But – as the film didn’t premier until 1935 and British Museum Station closed in 1933 – it’s more likely that the legend influenced the film rather than vice-versa. Bulldog Jack, however, helped keep alive and spread Amen-Ra’s myth, especially as the film itself would contribute in a strange way to the Unlucky Mummy’s notoriety. On the night Bulldog Jack was released, two women are said to have disappeared while walking through the tunnels of Holborn Station. Screams and moans were heard around the time they vanished and scratch marks appeared on the walls. During the following days, there were sightings of the headdress-wearing priestess. Even today, some assert, if you stand on the platform at Holborn, you can occasionally hear shrieks and wails echoing down the tracks from British Museum Station. Amen-Ra remains one of the most famous of the London Underground’s many ghosts.

Was the 1935 film Bulldog Jack partly inspired by legends of the Unlucky Mummy’s curse?

There are, though, no police records or newspaper accounts of women going missing or being murdered near Holborn Station on the night Bulldog Jack premiered and the rumours of their disappearance were likely connected to the hype around the film. The tales of British Museum Station being haunted, however, probably came from old stories of the Unlucky Mummy and the media sensationalism linked to them. Such legends were likely bolstered by the fanfare surrounding the discovery of King Tutankhamun’s tomb in 1922 and the rumours of curses in the years that followed. Again, the press played a role. Lord Carnarvon, who funded the tomb’s excavation, signed a strict and exclusive agreement with The Times that limited the rights of other papers to feature the story. When Carnarvon died shortly after the tomb’s discovery – from an infection following a mosquito bite, a similar cause of death to that which probably befell Tutankhamun  – it seems the other papers took revenge, and no doubt boosted their sales, by gleefully speculating about a ‘curse’. The Daily Express quoted a mystic and novelist who claimed, ‘The most dire punishment follows any rash intruder into a sealed tomb.’

How Much Truth Was There in the Outlandish Assertions about the Unlucky Mummy and What Were the Roots of Amen-Ra’s Strange Myth?

The Unlucky Mummy has been blamed for a lot of things – illnesses, injuries, deaths, abductions, the sinking of huge ships and the terrorising of passengers and staff on the London Tube. Legend even states that Sir Ernest Wallace Budge once muttered, ‘Never print what I saw in my lifetime, but the mummy case of Princess Amen-Ra caused the War.’ Apparently, the Unlucky Mummy was presented to the German Kaiser and the string of misfortunes that followed pushed the volatile emperor towards triggering World War I.

The truth would appear less dramatic. For a start, ‘Amen-Ra’ isn’t even a mummy. The artefact said to have caused all this trouble is merely the top half of a wooden coffin, dating from around 950 to 900 BC. The mummy it would have once shielded seems to have been left behind in Egypt. As for the knockings, apparitions, injuries and deaths supposedly visited on the British Museum after accepting Amen-Ra, these persistent rumours led Budge to issue a statement in 1934 that the museum had never possessed a mummy, coffin or cover that had been involved in any paranormal occurrences. He made it clear that the museum had never sold Amen-Ra’s coffin lid, that the coffin cover had never sailed on the Titanic and that it had not left the museum since arriving there. Budge admitted the artefact had been moved to the basement, but this was simply a precaution to protect the ornate lid – as well as many other treasures – during the First World War.

As early as 1923, Budge was trying to debunk the myths around the ‘Unlucky Mummy.’ In an interview with the New York Times, Budge related how the coffin lid of Amen-Ra had become confused with the crockery smashing mummy of the suburban drawing room and how the museum authorities had turned down Stead and Murray’s request to hold a seance. Budge described some of the hysteria that had grown up around the ‘mummy’, stating that people had sent letters from as far away as New Zealand and Algiers, containing money to buy flowers to be placed at Amen-Ra’s feet. The money had been put towards the general upkeep of the museum.

But was the coffin lid – despite its romance being somewhat lessened by the fact it no longer had a mummy to enclose – really part of the burial paraphernalia of a princess and priestess called Amen-Ra? Budge thought so, agreeing with Murray’s assessment by stating the cover’s owner would have been of ‘royal blood’. Early British Museum publications describe the artefact as having belonged to ‘a priestess of Amen-Ra’. Modern experts, however, disagree. The idea the casket sheltered the remains of a princess appears to have simply arisen from the high quality of the board. Though the coffin likely protected of a person of status, there’s no evidence its occupant was royal. There’s also no proof such a person was a priestess. Budge may have wrongly reached this conclusion because of a mention of King Amenhetep I on the coffin case, a benefactor of the priesthood of Amen-Ra at Thebes, where the lid probably came from. Moreover, there’s no indication the coffin’s tenant bore the name Amen-Ra herself.

Mummies and a frieze showing funeral rites in the British Museum’s First Egyptian Room

In addition to the embellishments of journalists and misunderstandings of early curators, it seems that a cast of colourful – and far from reliable – narrators have contributed outlandish additions to the Unlucky Mummy myth. The idea about the three disrespectful Egyptian servants dying appears to have come from a book called Witchcraft and Black Magic by Montague Summers (1880-1948). Summers was a highly eccentric character who claimed to be a Catholic priest, though there’s no evidence he was ever ordained. He believed in the literal existence of vampires and werewolves and could be seen swanning around the reading room of the British Museum – in a black cloak and buckled shoes – clutching a portfolio with ‘Vampires’ written on it in big blood-red letters.

Another colourful individual linked to the Unlucky Mummy myth was the folklorist and Egyptologist Margaret Murray. Murray put forward the notion that elaborate medieval secret societies practised witchcraft as an alternative religion to Christianity, a concept that – though now largely debunked – has had a strong influence on the Neo-Pagan movement. Murray, when almost 100 years old, confessed that she liked to entertain her students by talking about ‘Amen-Ra’s evil influence’ when taking them around the British Museum. Some were so frightened, they refused to enter the room containing the coffin case. Murray also claimed she’d invented certain myths about the mummy during an interview she didn’t take seriously. The ideas about the mummy sinking the Lusitania and Empress of Ireland appear to have come from her. Murray admitted she was astonished to hear such stories earnestly repeated as fact many years later.

There’s also the palmist Cheiro, who maintained that – after his dire predictions about Thomas Douglas Murray – Murray returned to see him with his empty right sleeve fastened across the front of his coat. During this meeting, Murray apparently related his Egyptian misadventures and subsequent struggles with the Unlucky Mummy. Cheiro was another unconventional figure who claimed to have – while still in his teenage years – travelled from his Irish home to India, where he learnt occult knowledge and the secrets of palmistry from the Brahmins. He’d acquire a high degree of fame, reading the hands of influential clients such as the Prince of Wales, Mark Twain, Oscar Wilde, W.T. Stead, and the prime ministers William Gladstone and Joseph Chamberlain. Other tales about the Unlucky Mummy seem to have originated from the ghost hunter Robert Thurston Hopkins, including the story about the photojournalist shooting himself.

And what About Sir Ernest Wallace Budge? Though he felt a professional duty to present himself as a man of science, reason and scepticism, he was also fascinated by the supernatural. Budge – the British Museum’s Keeper of Egyptian and Assyrian Antiquities for 30 years, a philologist and translator of the Egyptian Book of the Dead – was a member of the Ghost Club. According to Peter Underwood, author of Haunted London, ‘Budge, in private if not in public, certainly believed in Egyptian magic and the power of their dead.’ Budge died in 1934, shortly after making his statement dismissing the myths surrounding the Unlucky Mummy. Could ‘Amen-Ra’ have been avenging his belittling of her powers?

Pearson’s Magazine, featuring the curse of the Unlucky Mummy, in 1909

But we might also ask why tales of vengeful mummies and ancient curses so excited the Victorian and early 20th-century public. One reason was ‘Egyptomania’ – an enthusiasm for all things Ancient Egypt that began in Georgian times, springing from the colonial opening up of Egypt and advances in archaeology. Egyptian themes cropped up in operas and novels; tombs resembling miniature pyramids appeared in British churchyards; and Egyptian designs featured on furniture, jewellery and buildings. Egyptomania could lead to some far-fetched notions and outrageous goings-on. There were claims the Egyptians had understood the secrets of time travel – with a neo-Egyptian mausoleum in London’s Brompton Cemetery gaining a reputation as a ‘Victorian time machine’ – while the body of a Manchester heiress was even transformed by a less than honest doctor into an Egyptian-style mummy.

Yet could there be more behind this fascination for – and fear of – the legacy of Ancient Egypt? From 1798, when the French invaded Egypt under Napoleon, colonial powers – the French, the British, the Ottoman Turks and a dynasty descended from Albanian mercenaries originally employed by the Ottomans – vied for power and influence in the country. Britain launched an attack on Egypt in 1882, bombarding Alexandria for 10-and-a-half hours and causing a fire that destroyed much of the city. A successful land invasion followed and the British would remain in Egypt – in one way or another – until 1922.

Despite this victorious conquest, many in Britain felt disquiet about their country’s conduct. As would be the case in more modern times, people wondered whether a European nation should be getting involved in a Middle-Eastern country’s affairs, despite being told by their government the intervention was necessary to depose a tyrannical regime. Most of these doubters, however, didn’t express their unease openly through fear of seeming unpatriotic. Their anxieties and guilt perhaps manifested in another way – in a terror of cursed Egyptian artefacts taking revenge on Europeans who’d dared to disrespect them. An example of such an artefact is Cleopatra’s Needle, a huge obelisk that was shipped from Alexandria to London and now stands beside the Thames. The obelisk has accrued a rich folklore of hauntings, curses and occult powers.

All this combined with worries about how various types of science, and developing disciplines like history and archaeology, were upending old sacred ways of thinking. Advances in archaeology and comparative mythology – together with breakthroughs like Darwin’s laws of evolution – were making it harder to literally believe in the Bible and traditional Christianity, hence the fascination for seances and table rapping. (The growth of capitalist individualism also made it harder to accept that unique and precious individuals could one day cease to exist – thus the attempts to contact loved ones on ‘the other side’.) What better metaphor could there be for science overturning and outraging the ancient and sacred than archaeologists rifling Egyptian tombs and museum curators examining and labelling artefacts then placing them in the sterile environment of the glass case? And what better encapsulation of fears about where such sacrilege could lead than thrilling legends of age-old magical curses, legends ably amplified by a growing modern media?

In Guy Boothroyd’s 1899 novel Pharos the Egyptian, a character asks, ‘And pray by what right did your father rifle the dead man’s tomb? Perhaps you will show me his justification for carrying away the body from the country in which it had been laid to rest, and conveying it to England to be stared at in the light of curiosity.’

Such anxieties and fears have not departed even today. Visitors still report unsettling sensations when viewing the Unlucky Mummy’s coffin lid. In 2013, there was intense curiosity – and not a little unease – when an Egyptian statuette in the Manchester Museum began rotating in its case. (The rotating turned out to be caused by vibrations from passing traffic and visitors’ footsteps.) A May 2020 article in The Sun claimed that security guards in the British Museum had been witnessing strange phenomena like unexplained footsteps, glowing white orbs hovering above staircases, sightings of a ghostly female dwarf, alarms going off for no reason at midnight, and sudden plunges in temperature in the Egyptian galleries.

One guard – who’d worked at the museum for 29 years – said, ‘It was like walking into a freezer. My stomach turned over. The feel of the gallery was – you wanted to get out. I’m a great believer that, wherever you’re buried, you should stay there. A lot of the mummies there should be back in their graves.’

This article’s main image is courtesy of the British Museum (© The Trustees of the British Museum. Shared under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0) licence.)

The post The Unlucky Mummy – Curse of the British Museum & Sinker of the Titanic? appeared first on David Castleton Blog - The Serpent's Pen.

Legend has indeed given Mother Damnable a notorious reputation. Her parents, it’s said, were hanged for causing a young girl’s death by witchcraft and her lovers either met gruesome ends or mysteriously vanished. Three were reputedly dispatched by her hand, with the charred body parts of one being discovered in her oven. She’s alleged to have given shelter to the infamous female bandit Moll Cutpurse. In her old age, when rumours of her dabbling in the black arts were at their most intense, Mother Damnable was blamed for any misfortune that befell the inhabitants of Camden Town. (Then little more than a hamlet and collection of alehouses scattered around a crossroads on a northerly route into London.) The villagers would apparently gather outside the witch’s cottage and berate her. Mother Damnable would respond by leaning from her window and flinging foul abuse. Usually, the appearance of her huge, vicious black cat  – widely thought to be a devilish familiar – sent the yokels scurrying.

But was Mother Damnable really a practitioner of black magic? Was she a murderer? Did she exist at all? Was she perhaps a composite of several infamous females? Why was she associated with a pub that remained notorious for centuries after her death? What was Mother Damnable’s connection with the renowned Yorkshire fortune teller Mother Shipton and what did Dracula author Bram Stoker have to say about her? And why might rumours of witchcraft have attached themselves to such a person in the first place? Read on for tales of gallows, hairless cats, bat-embroidered cloaks, spooky crossroads and weird potions.

Mother Damnable’s Notorious Parents and her Four Dead or ‘Disappeared’ Lovers

According to the legends, Mother Damnable’s real name was Jinney – or Jinny or Jenny – Bingham. Though records of her birth have either been lost or never existed, she seems to have been born around 1600. She was the only child of a brickmaker, Jacob Bingham, from Kentish Town, which was the nearest settlement of any size to Camden. Her mother was the daughter of a Scottish peddler, who Jacob met while serving in Scotland in the army. His military service over, Jacob returned to the Camden Town area with his Scots wife and resumed his brickmaking trade. The couple and their young daughter, however, would sometimes travel around the country to peddle Jacob’s wares.

At about 16 years of age, Jinney Bingham became pregnant by her boyfriend, a man known as ‘Gypsy’ George Coulter. Her father built the couple a cottage on a patch of waste land, commonly believed to be the spot now covered by Camden Town Tube Station. (Though some say the cottage stood on the site now occupied by the – perhaps appropriately named – World’s End pub just across the road.) George’s residency in the cottage would prove a short one. Accused of stealing sheep near Holloway, he was tried at the Old Bailey and hanged at Tyburn (A notorious place of execution close to Marble Arch). Jinney next took up with a man named Darby, a heavy drinker. Their relationship soon became full of furious arguments and violent confrontations. After one particularly brutal incident, Jinney is said to have sought her mother’s advice on how to deal with her drunken lover. Darby vanished shortly afterwards. No one knew what had befallen him and no investigation was conducted into his disappearance.

But Jinney was about to lose more people in her life. Her parents were ordered to appear in court, accused of killing a young girl by means of witchcraft. The two were found guilty and hanged. Jinney, perhaps to fill the emotional gap left by their execution, began cohabiting with a man named Pitcher. As with her liaison with Darby, their relationship soon degenerated into a series of arguments and fights. Pitcher, like his predecessor, wouldn’t be part of Jinney’s life for long. Unlike with Darby, however, it soon became clear what had happened to him. Pitcher’s body was discovered – charred and toasted – in Jinney’s oven.

As there was a body, there could be an investigation and Jinney Bingham was put on trial for Pitcher’s murder. Things were looking grim for her until an associate popped up in the witness box. This acquaintance said Pitcher had a habit of hiding in the oven to escape Jinney’s savage tongue. Perhaps, having done this, he’d fallen asleep and his roasting had merely been an accident. The court was convinced and Jinney was acquitted.

An image of ‘Mother Damnable of Kentish Town’, said to be from 1676

Despite her evasion of the noose, the trial ruined Jinney’s – already far from spotless – reputation in her neighbourhood. People avoided her and she became more reclusive. She’d normally wait until nightfall to leave her home, when fewer people were around. Nobody could say for certain how she supported herself, a fact which likely gave rise to more gossip. It was around this time she acquired certain nicknames – Mother Damnable, Mother Redcap and the Shrew of Kentish Town. (In that era, a ‘shrew’ was an ill-tempered, aggressive woman prone to nagging and scolding, as in Shakespeare’s The Taming of the Shrew.)

In the 1640s, during the English Civil War, the reclusive Jinney Bingham was surprised by an urgent banging on the door of her cottage. She opened it to see a man who begged her for shelter, claiming he was being pursued. Jinney gave him lodgings and the man – who turned out to be wealthy – became her lover. Moll Cutpurse – a notorious thief who wore men’s clothing, smoked a pipe and pimped both male and female prostitutes – sometimes stayed with them during the Civil War and its aftermath. Jinney’s wealthy lover would, however, prove little better at getting on with her than her previous partners. Though their vitriolic relationship dragged on for many years, he eventually died. The villagers suspected Jinney had poisoned him. Their claims were investigated, but the inquest decided there was insufficient evidence to support this allegation. Around this time, rumours grew up that Mother Damnable – as her parents had – was meddling in the black arts. Such gossip would dominate the later years of Jinney Bingham’s life.

Mother Damnable’s Old Age, Reputation for Witchcraft and Devilish Death

As Mother Damnable aged, she became ever more reclusive. Usually, just her large, vicious black cat provided her with company. Villagers did, however, sometimes sneak in to see her thanks to her reputed skills as a teller of fortunes and – according to Samuel Palmer’s local history book St Pancras (1870) – ‘a healer of strange diseases’.  The same residents, however, scapegoated her for anything that went wrong – the death of a cow or child, perhaps, or the failure of a business or crops.

Palmer stated that ‘when any mishap occurred, then the old crone was set upon by the mob and hooted without mercy. The old, ill-favoured creature would at such times lean out of her hatch-door, with a grotesque red cap on her head.’ The cap was said to be worn to hide her baldness. Palmer goes on to describe Mother Damnable as having ‘a large broad nose, heavy shaggy eyebrows, sunken eyes and lank and leathern cheeks; her forehead wrinkled, her eyes wide and her looks sullen and unmoved. On her shoulders was thrown a dark grey striped frieze, with black patches, that looked from a distance like flying bats. Suddenly she would let her huge black cat jump upon the hatch by her side, when the mob instantly retreated from a superstitious dread of the double foe.’

Despite her age and isolation, Mother Damnable never seemed to want for anything. The house, having been built by her father, was hers and she presumably either made sufficient money from fortune-telling and herbalism or had enough left over from her rich boyfriend. She probably died around 1680 and, according to legend, the Devil was seen coming to collect her wicked soul and she was found with a concoction of herbs still bubbling over her fire.

Samuel Palmer quotes from the ‘old pamphlet’ describing the witch’s demise. According to this text, one of those who discovered Mother Damnable thought it would be a good idea to give some of her potion to the cat. The feline’s ‘hair fell off in two hours, and the cat soon died’. Mother Damnable, the pamphlet continues, ‘was stiff when found, and … the undertaker was obliged to break her limbs before he could place them in the coffin and … the justices have put men in possession of the house to examine its contents.’

Palmer concludes by asserting: ‘Such is the history of this strange being, whose name will ever be associated with Camden Town, and whose reminiscence will ever be revived by the old wayside house, which, built on the site of the old beldame’s cottage, wears her head as the sign of the tavern.’

The above account is the story of Mother Damnable as popularly understood in legend. But how true might such a tale be and – if it is more folklore than fact – what could have influenced the evolution of this weird myth? Let’s investigate in the next sections.

Camden Town Tube Station – built over the home of the notorious witch Mother Damnable? (Photo: Sunil060902)

Might Mother Damnable Have Been a Fearsome, Foul-Mouthed, She-Dragon of an … Innkeeper?

In this strange case, it might be wise to see to how much we can tease out the possible narratives of Mother Damnable, Mother Redcap, the Shrew of Kentish Town and Jinney Bingham, see how far they go back and question to what extent these different names might be referring to the same person.

A Mother Redcap is mentioned in a letter said to have been sent from Whitehall by one Henry Foxhall to Charles Firebrace in 1666, but perhaps the most interesting early sources depict a ‘Mother Damnable of Kentish Town’. These sources, consisting of pictures and a satirical rhyme, are dated 1676 and probably came from a broadside. (Broadsides were single sheets of paper hawked in the streets and printed with poems, news or ballads.) The earliest copies of the 1676 sources we have, however, are from 1793. They appear in James Caulfield’s Portraits, Memoirs, and Characters of remarkable Persons, from the Reign of Edward III to the Revolution; collected from the most authentic accounts, which seems to have been published in batches between 1790 and 1795.

The pictures show Mother Damnable as a witchy-looking old woman in patched threadbare clothes seated close to a fire, but the accompanying rhyme appears to depict her as a foul-mouthed, combative pub landlady rather than a worker of magic. We learn that Mother Damnable was prone to ‘cursing, fuming, flinging fire in the face of Madam, Lord, Knight, Gent, City Squire’. We also learn that whenever she was ‘ruffled into the least pet, will cellar-dore key into pocket get, then no more ale, And now the fray begins!’ During this ‘fray’, customers are warned to beware of ‘heads, wigs, hoods, scarfs, shoulders, sides and shins’. As the fracas unfolds, the ‘fierce she-dragon’ Mother Damnable ‘sends forth such dismal shrieks and uncouth noise, As fills the town with din, the street with boys.’

The satirical rhyme about ‘Mother Damnable of Kentish Town’. The spilt and broken tankards in the background might also indicate she was the landlady of a rowdy establishment.

So how might this ‘Mother Damnable of Kentish Town’, this terrifying landlady, connect with the witch of Camden Town, Jinney Bingham? Caulfield – who claimed to have acquired the pictures and rhyme from the collection of a ‘J. Bindley Esq’ – states that Mother Damnable’s real name was unknown. But beneath one of the pictures is written: ‘Mother Damnable, the remarkable shrew of Kentish Town, the person who gave rise to the sign of Mother Recap on the Hampstead Road, near London, an dom 1676.’

I suspect this caption was written by Caulfield or some other later writer rather than dating to the late 1600s. The language – though I wouldn’t claim to be an expert – doesn’t sound like 17th-century English and the tense would indicate it was written after Mother Damnable’s death. (The tenses used in the verse, on the other hand, make it sound like Mother Damnable is vigorously alive, as she might well have been in 1676.) What Caulfield, or whoever wrote the caption, is doing, however, is making an explicit connection with a pub that stood for a long time at the crossroads where Jinney Bingham’s cottage is once said to have been located. (Now either the site of Camden Town Tube Station or the World’s End.) This pub – also for a long time – seems to have been called The Mother Red Cap (or Old Mother Red Cap), which – as we’ve seen – was another of Jinney’s nicknames. The satirical rhyme links Mother Damnable to Kentish Town rather than Camden, but as Camden Town was so small in those days it was often lumped in with its more sizeable neighbour. So it’s possible the pub of the notorious alewife of the Mother Damnable rhyme might have been situated at Jinney’s crossroads – and the alewife herself might have been Jinney.

The first known reference to a pub in this location is from 1690. Though we can’t know what the pub was named in such times, the idea seems to have arisen that it was long called the Mother Redcap after a notorious ex-owner. A sketch reputedly from 1746 names the pub the Old Mother Redcap while a cartoon from 1820 includes a painting of the pub with that name (though minus the ‘Old’). In his Book for a Rainy Day or Recollections of the Events of the Years 1766-1833 (1905), J.T. Smith wrote that the Mother Red Cap had a terrifying reputation as ‘it has been stated that “Mother Red Cap” was “Mother Damnable” of Kentish Town in early days, and that it was at her house that the notorious “Moll Cut-purse”, the highwaywoman of Oliver Cromwell’s days, dismounted and frequently lodged.’ In Old and New London (1878), Edward Walford reports that ‘the old house was taken down, and another rebuilt on its site, with the former sign, about the year 1850. This again, in its turn, was removed; and a third house, in the modern style, and of still greater pretensions, was built on the same site a quarter of a century afterwards.’

The sign – which always seems to have been rescued from any demolition and displayed outside each version of the Mother Red Cap – according to Walford: ‘Exhibited that venerable lady – whether she was alewife or witch – with a tall, extinguisher-shaped hat, not unlike that ascribed to Mother Shipton.’

A bucolic sketch of the Mother Red Cap, said to be from 1746

So Jinney Bingham – if that was indeed her name – might have been an innkeeper rather than a witch. If Jinney was an innkeeper, one would suspect she’d have presided over a less than respectable hostelry, perhaps some sort of grog shop. (Maybe, due to the tavern’s prominent location, though, the madams, lords and gents of the rhyme occasionally wandered in – to be quickly repulsed by the landlady and clientele.) A character running a rough pub popular with travellers and criminals might well – like the Jinney of legend – have possessed a robust will, volatile temper, razor-edged tongue and propensity to undertake occasional violent acts. The supposed location of Jinney’s cottage – on the corner of a busy crossroads on a route into London – seems to me a more likely site for an alehouse than a ramshackle witch’s dwelling. It’s hard to imagine such a piece of prime real estate being a scrap of waste ground on which a poor workman might erect a humble house for his daughter. Jinney’s giving of lodgings to people – like Moll Cutpurse and the Civil War fugitive – might also suggest innkeeping was her occupation. In addition, ‘Mother Redcap’ was a common nickname bestowed on female innkeepers from the late 1500s onwards. The name is mentioned, for instance, in a 1595 jestbook, a 1597 play and a 1656 ballad. It seems that only in the 1800s did the name Mother Redcap cease to denote an innkeeper and start denoting a witch.

Cartoon of 1820 showing a picture of the Mother Red Cap in Camden Town

But might there not have been some indications of witchiness around this ferocious landlady? It’s been suggested that alewives were perceived by some to have a witchy aura. They owned cats to keep rodents away from the malt, wore tall black hats so they’d stand out in the marketplace, used broom-like braided twigs to remove yeast from fermented beer and displayed magical-looking stars as a sign of their ale’s purity. Furthermore, the 1676 rhyme compares Mother Damnable to other notorious females – Mother Shipton, Mother Louse and ‘Macbeth’s wayward women’. Mother Louse was another infamously ugly and sharp-tongued alewife, but Mother Shipton (of whom we’ll hear more later) and the women mentioned from Macbeth were seen as witches. It’s unlikely, however, that the author of the rhyme was seriously suggesting Mother Damnable was a witch. Though by 1676 the persecution of witches had lost some of its intensity, executions for witchcraft continued into the early 1700s and those suspected of this offence were despised social outcasts. No one would have wanted to drink in a bar run by a witch. What the broadside might have done, however – especially if it had sold well – was put the idea in some minds that there was some link between witches and Mother Damnable and – as we’ll see below – this association may have grown stronger over the centuries.

So How Did Mother Damnable Come to Be Seen as a Witch and What Did Mother Shipton Have to Do with It All?

The 1676 sources depicting ‘Mother Damnable of Kentish Town’ – assuming the materials James Caulfield acquired for his book were genuinely from around that date – would suggest there might have been a formidable landlady with that nickname and that she might have run a pub on Jinney’s crossroads. But, as we’ve seen, these sources describe her as alewife rather than witch. They also make no mention of her slaying her lovers, of her parents being hung for practising the black arts and of the Devil’s remarkable visit to her cottage on the day of her death.

Most of what we know today about the Jinney Bingham/Mother Damnable character comes from Samuel Palmer’s 1870 book, the full title of which is the snappy St Pancras, Being Antiquarian, Topographical, and Biographical Memoranda, Relating to the Extensive Metropolitan Parish of St Pancras, Middlesex, with Some Account of the Parish from Its Foundation (St Pancras was the large semi-urban parish that then included Camden Town). Palmer appears to have been the first to link the name Jinney Bingham with the Mother Damnable figure. The only reference to sources he makes, however, is his mention of the ‘old pamphlet’ describing Mother Damnable’s death. I haven’t been able to find any earlier references to this pamphlet. Some of the descriptions Palmer gives – the likening of the patches on the cloak to bats, for instance – smack more of Victorian Gothic Romanticism than how people would have perceived witches in the 1600s. (Palmer – a writer, painter and disciple of William Blake – was an important figure in the English Romantic movement.)

We might suspect, then, that the shrewish and combative aspects of Jinney Bingham/Mother Damnable stemmed from the attributes of a real person and only in the Victorian age became mingled with legends of witchcraft. This could have been thanks both to a misunderstanding of the term Mother Redcap, the meaning of which had changed over time, and the Romantic Victorian embellishments of writers like Samuel Palmer. (The letter from Henry Foxhall, though supposedly sent in 1666, actually first appears in a book published in 1843, perhaps suggesting some gothic Victorian enhancements may have taken place with that correspondence.) From Palmer’s descriptions of Mother Damnable, it would seem he was familiar with the pictures published by Caulfield. Could Palmer have observed Mother Damnable kneeling before the fire and allowed his gothic imagination to invent her teapot full of ‘drugs, herbs and liquid’? (Palmer and other later writers perhaps also converted Mother Damnable’s inclination for casual violence into a string of murders.)  

The English Romantic Samuel Palmer (1805-81) in a self-portrait of 1826. Palmer did much to popularise the tale of the Camden Town witch Mother Damnable.

It is possible, however, that Palmer drew at least some of his material from local oral traditions. The turning of Mother Damnable into a witch was probably not a completely Victorian innovation. To understand how this switch of identity may have come about, we’ll need to turn our attention again to Camden Town’s inns. One such tavern had a very similar name to the Mother Red Cap: the Mother Black Cap.

The Mother Black Cap seems to have been established by about 1750. It must have been in existence by 1830 at the latest, as a manuscript from around that date mentions both the Mother Black Cap and Mother Red Cap in a list of Camden Town’s pubs, along with eight other hostelries with names like the Laurel Tree, the Hope and Anchor, and the Elephant and Castle. The Mother Black Cap, according to Walford, stood ‘at the northern or upper end of the High Street’. Mother Blackcap was a common name for Mother Shipton, a semi-legendary witch and fortune teller with astounding prophetic powers said to have lived between 1488 and 1561 and to have been born near Knaresborough, Yorkshire. Walford comments, ‘It is not a little remarkable that two inns bearing the names of these semi-mythical ladies exist within half-a-mile of each other.’

The first records of Mother Shipton and her prophecies appeared in 1641, 80 years after her reported death. By this stage, accounts of the prophetess would have passed somewhat into the realms of the mythic. Though Mother Shipton was generally seen as a less malevolent character than Jinney Bingham/Mother Damnable, the legends of the two enchantresses have certain aspects in common. Mother Shipton was also said to be hideously ugly, she knew the medicinal properties of plants and herbs, and – like Jinney Bingham – she suffered ostracisation because of her ugliness and reputation as a witch. Her husband died young and – as with the Shrew of Kentish Town and her lovers – some suspected Mother Shipton of causing his death. The Devil was also rumoured to be involved in Mother Shipton’s story. Some said Mother Shipton sold him her soul in exchange for her weird powers; others that her mother Agatha had been seduced by the Devil or had summoned him herself, with their union resulting in the birth of the strange child that would grow up to be Mother Shipton. Like Mother Damnable, Mother Shipton foretold the future, though her prophecies tended to be grander than Mother Redcap’s predictions about her neighbours’ affairs. Mother Shipton predicted the first piped water system in York, Henry VIII’s Dissolution of the Monasteries and Break with Rome, and the spectacular growth of the capital: ‘Shall Highgate Hill stand in the midst of London’. Several accounts have her casually assigning a date for the Apocalypse. Despite her fame as a witch, Mother Shipton, like Mother Damnable, wasn’t put to death. She died peacefully in her bed at an old age.

The famous Yorkshire witch Mother Shipton – a model for Camden Town’s Mother Damnable?

We might wonder why a witch from the north would have a pub named after her in Camden Town. Mother Shipton did have a nationwide fame. D.C. Mackay, in his Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions (1841), wrote, ‘The prophecies of Mother Shipton are still believed in many of the rural districts of England. In cottages and servants’ halls, her reputation is still great; and she rules, the most popular of British prophets, among all the uneducated and half-educated portion of the community.’ Her popularity in the north, however, seems to have been especially strong.

In his 1910 book Famous Imposters, the author of Dracula Bram Stoker devoted a chapter to Mother Damnable’s legend. Stoker felt the Mother Black Cap pub was likely so-named because ‘Camden Town was a suburb through which the northern traffic passed on its way to and from London.’ It was, therefore, ‘wise to use for publicity and entertainment names that were familiar to north country ears. Before the railways were organised the great wheeled and horse traffic between London and the North – especially Yorkshire which was one of the first Counties to take up manufacturing and the wool trade – went through Camden Town. So it was wise forethought to take as an inn sign a Yorkshire name. The name of Mother Shipton had been in men’s mouths and ears for about two-hundred years, and as the times had so changed that the old stigma of witchcraft was not then understood, the association with Knaresborough alone remained.’ As for Mother Damnable’s reputed end, Stoker wryly comments, ‘What a pity it was that no veracious scribe or draughtsman was present in the crowd which had noticed the Devil’s entry into the house. In such a case we might have got a real likeness of His Satanic Majesty – a thing which has long been wanted – and the opportunities of obtaining which are few.’

So, in Camden Town, two public houses were named after notorious women of legend. One – the Mother Black Cap – was named after Mother Shipton, a well-known soothsayer and witch, whereas the other – the Mother Red Cap – may have been christened in honour of Jinney Bingham/Mother Damnable, a sharp-tongued shrew with a reputation for violence who, nonetheless, might not have originally had associations with magic. Despite this, there were similarities in the two women’s legends and both pubs’ landlords – according to Stoker, ‘open and avowed trade rivals’ – likely used those legends to promote their competing establishments. Over time, the two ladies with similar names – who also, excepting the colour of their headgear, probably looked similar on their pub signs – may have been confused by the residents of Camden Town and the travellers that stopped there. Bits of Mother Shipton’s myth could therefore have sneaked into the folklore surrounding Mother Redcap. (Perhaps building on the tenuous links already made as long ago as the 1676 broadside.) In this way, witchcraft might have been added to the list of fearsome attributes the sword-tongued shrew possessed. Victorian writers may have then applied a gothic gloss to the legend of Mother Damnable, giving it its current form.

The Black Cap pub in Camden Town, which closed in 2015, was a descendant of the Mother Black Cap. (Photo courtesy of Nylki)

Of course, the Mother Damnable character might over the years have accumulated aspects of several women. A number of scholars – including the folklorists Steve Roud and Jacqueline Simpson and the historian John Callow – do see Mother Damnable as a composite figure of two or more individuals. Mother Louse has already been mentioned and it’s also been suggested that one of the models for Mother Redcap was a follower of the Duke of Marlborough’s army during the Reign of Queen Anne (1702-14). In Holloway, not far from Camden Town, a coin or token is said to have been discovered dated 1667 and crudely stamped with the inscription ‘Mother Read Cap’s in Holloway.’ Another possible prototype for the Mother Redcap myth was an alewife named Eleanor Rumming of Leatherhead, Surrey, who lived in the reign of Henry VIII. The poet John Skelton (c.1463-1529) described Eleanor as being ‘ugly of cheer, her face all bowsy, wondrously wrinkled, her een bleared, and she grey-haired.’ It’s interesting, though, that none of these women seem to have been associated with witchcraft, a fact that would perhaps support the idea that the witchy aspects of Mother Damnable were imported into her myth thanks to Mother Shipton and a confusion – especially after a few ales – of pub signs. But is this necessarily the case or might parts of Mother Damnable’s legend really match up with deep folkloric notions of the magical and attitudes towards witches that were current in the 1600s? Let’s try to find out below.

Crossroads, Black Cats, Scapegoats and the Coming of Capitalism – How Might the Mother Damnable Legend Match up with the Folklore and History of Witchcraft?

Although the Jinney Bingham/Mother Damnable legend might have arisen in the Georgian and Victorian epochs from the fusing of various elements – and various semi-historical figures – certain things about her mythos do equate with folkloric notions of witches and the historical knowledge we have of those who tended to be accused of witchcraft.

Mother Damnable owned a black cat and such felines already had their reputation as sinister beings and witches’ familiars in the 1600s. It’s possible, however, that the cat was later added to her myth. It’s also interesting that her cottage was said to have stood at a crossroads. Crossroads, perhaps because they symbolise the intersection of different realities or realms, are in many parts of the world seen as magical sites. In England, they were reputed to be places where magical rituals occurred. They were also sites where suicides were buried and gallows and gibbets set up. This was partly due to the belief that the unquiet ghost of the suicide or executed convict would be confused by the choice of four ways and therefore wouldn’t wander off to haunt nearby settlements. There were indeed once plans to erect a gallows at Mother Damnable’s crossroads. In 1776, The Morning Post stated, ‘Orders have been given from the Secretary of State’s office that the criminals capitally convicted at the Old Bailey shall in the future be executed at the crossroads near the “Mother Red Cap” inn, the half-way house to Hampstead, and that no galleries, scaffolds or other temporary stages be built near the place.’

Ye Olde Mother Red Cap in 1930 opposite Camden Town Tube Station. Some, however, say the station itself was the site of the original tavern.

It seems these gallows were either never erected or never used. This may have been because of the popularity of the site with Londoners. In Old and New London Walford wrote, ‘At the beginning of the present (19th) century the “Mother Red Cap” was a constant resort for many a Londoner who desired to inhale the fresh air and enjoy the quiet of the country, for at that time the old tavern – which, by the way, was also known as the half-way house to Highgate and Hampstead – stood almost in open fields and was approached on different sides by green lanes and hedgerow roads. At that time too, the dairy over the way, at the corner of the Chalk Farm, or Hampstead, or the Kentish Town Roads, was not the fashionable establishment it afterwards became, but partook more the character of “milk fair” … for there were forms for the pedestrians to rest on, and the good folks served out milk fresh from the cow to all who came.’ This bucolic scene perhaps contrasts with some of the crossroads’ more sinister associations and Smith’s depictions of the Mother Red Cap as a terrifying inn.

A postcard showing the Ye Olde Mother Red Cap pub in Camden Town around 1925. The pub is listed under that name in directories from the 1930s and 1940s. In 1985, it was renamed The World’s End.

Returning to Mother Damnable, though, research by historians – such as Keith Thomas in his Religion and the Decline of Magic – indicates that in the Early Modern Period (1500-1700) certain types of people were more likely to be accused of witchcraft. Though individuals of any age, sex or social rank could have the charge of witchcraft levelled against them, older poor women were much more frequently accused. This was largely because the emergence of the capitalist system was leading to a more individualistic and money-orientated outlook on life. The old feudal bonds of community were weakening and people were less inclined to give charity to their poorer neighbours. And the poorest of all tended to be old, often widowed women, who had no one to support them and to whom the economic and social structures of the time gave little opportunity for employment. But the old ways of thinking hadn’t gone entirely so when such people turned up begging at their neighbours’ doors and were sent away, the neighbours were likely to feel guilt. As so often is the case, this guilt expressed itself as anger and blame towards the victims of the social system. When a mishap occurred – an animal dying, a failure of crops – and the householder remembered the old woman he’d turned away (and perhaps turned away with a good few curses and threats coming from the crone) he might assume she’d cast a spell on him.

It’s interesting that the rumours of Mother Damnable practising witchcraft became more intense towards the end of her life. It’s also intriguing that her neighbours were depicted as harassing her when any of them had suffered a misfortune. What doesn’t fit this narrative, however, is that Mother Damnable never seems to have wanted for anything and was never put on trail for witchcraft. This could indicate that – if one of the prototypes of the Mother Damnable figure was some sort of enchantress – she might have been a cunning woman. Cunning men and women were village folk magicians who used a combination of sympathetic magic, Christian prayers, amulets and talismans, and herbal remedies to help neighbours who came to them in trouble. They might, for instance, cure human and animal diseases, help find lost goods or identify thieves. Though being accused of witchcraft was an occupational hazard for a cunning woman or man, it was something that in fact happened infrequently, perhaps indicating the importance communities placed on such people. The Mother Damnable character’s brewing up of potions, her relative prosperity and the fact she wasn’t tried for witchcraft might suggest that one of the models for her was such a person.

Is Camden Town Tube Station still infused with the dark spirit of the witch Mother Damnable? (Photo: Rossographer)

All this is, of course, speculation and the scarcity of sources from the time she was said to have lived makes it difficult to do more than take educated guesses about Jinney Bingham/Mother Damnable’s identity. But an attempt to understand her strange narrative could run something like this. A female innkeeper in the 1600s – infamous for her sharp tongue, aggressive demeanour and violent tendencies – was so notorious that pubs built on the site of her tavern were thereafter named after her. Her legend thus established, it over the years merged with tales of similar redoubtable alewives and – possibly – with memories of old women accused of witchcraft and cunning folk. The setting up of a rival tavern nearby – called the Mother Black Cap, after Mother Shipton – either introduced magical elements into her myth or enhanced any such elements already there. This was largely due to the public confusing Mothers Blackcap and Redcap and merging their legends, legends which may have already boasted striking similarities. When excitable Victorian writers put a fashionably gothic overlay on it all, the terrifying tale of black magic and villainy was complete.

I think Camden Town Tube Station is still a strange spot. The atmosphere’s heavy, as if with centuries of foreboding, and the meeting of four roads throbbing with London traffic does give one a feel of a crackle in the air. On a London Underground network replete with tales of ghosts and hauntings, the origin myth of Camden Town Station stands out as especially eerie. Perhaps, also, the spirit of Mother Damnable lives on in the gothic culture the area’s now famous for, with its market stalls of black drapery and witchy trinkets. The psychogeography of Camden’s pubs also hints at an influence from the tutelary spirit of the once notorious innkeeper. There’s the doomily named World’s End; there was until some years ago a pub bearing the name the Halfway House (called now, I think, the Camden Eye, with a somewhat ominous-looking eye painted on its gable). There was also, until 2015, a pub called the Black Cap – a descendant, I believe, of the original Mother Black Cap. This pub was a haunt of the serial killers Dennis Nilsen and Anthony Hardy and Nilsen picked out some of his victims in there. On a less dark note, a pub called the Mother Black Cap appeared in the cult film Withnail and I (1987), set in Camden Town in 1969. The main characters, drink-soaked and drug-infused out-of-work actors, are threatened with violence in the establishment. Perhaps the spirit of Mother Damnable has truly settled on Camden and – despite ongoing attempts to corporatise, sanitise and gentrify the neighbourhood – isn’t going to leave any time soon.

The post Mother Damnable – the Wicked Witch of Camden Town Tube Station appeared first on David Castleton Blog - The Serpent's Pen.

This figure was named Joe Magarac and – like those who told his stories – he was a steelworker. Like them, Joe was of immigrant status, but he hadn’t been born in the natural way. It’s claimed he miraculously emerged from either an iron ore mine or an entire mountain made of that rock. Some say this mystical birth occurred in America’s Allegheny Mountains, others that it happened back in the ‘old country’. Wherever it took place, Joe’s strong accent and broken English marked him as unmistakably of immigrant stock though his ethnicity was never certain – some say he was a Croat, some a Serb, others a Hungarian, Slovak or Pole. Some maintain Joe Magarac – a giant – sprang into the world fully formed, others that he spent his childhood and youth inside a furnace.

Joe wasn’t made of human bone and flesh, but entirely of steel. More modest accounts give him a height of seven feet, but in the most extravagant tales he was as tall as a smokestack. His back, it’s claimed, was as large as the steelworks door. His neck resembled a bull’s while his biceps were wider than a man’s waist. Joe Magarac used his hands – which were the size of buckets – as ladles to pore molten steel. Some even say metal was his food – that he ate ingots as other men ate meat and drank molten steel like soup, downing a gallon in just one swallow. Less outlandish stories have him consuming normal food, but carrying his sandwiches in a washtub rather than lunchbox.

Joe’s gargantuan stature and inhuman flesh made him a tireless worker. He could toil for 24 hours and do the work of 29 men, needing just short breaks and never having to sleep. With his bare hands, he squeezed railroad spikes out of spheres of molten steel, stirred vats of bubbling metal, and twisted horseshoes and pretzels out of iron ingots. From cooling metal, he could sculpt cannonballs as easily as children make snowballs. When a vat of liquid steel was ready for pouring, he’d taste it to check it was just right like a chef might sample a spoonful of broth. Joe then blew the blisteringly hot steam from his nose like cigar smoke.

Despite his fearsome physical capabilities, Joe was good-hearted. He once took part in a weight-lifting contest, whose prize was the hand in marriage of Mary Mestrovich, the beautiful daughter of the boss of his work gang. Joe easily beat two other workers, Pete Pussick and Elli Stanowski, and a fellow from the next town. Finding out, however, that Mary and Pete were in love – and seeing the looks of adoration they shared –  Joe stepped aside and let the couple marry. Besides, Joe didn’t want the distractions from work a wife would bring and knew any wife he took would get lonely as he laboured through his 24-hour days.

Mural of Joe Magarac, the legendary steelworker, in the Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh

Joe did much to help other steelworkers and save them from accidents. The more sensationalist stories claim he could be anywhere in the mill in seconds, sometimes hopping between the rims of boiling furnaces to get across the factory. On one occasion, a crane was transporting a ladle – brimming with 50 tons of molten steel – high above the busy shop floor. A crack appeared in the container and quickly spread, threatening that a ‘torrent of steel, bright as liquid sunlight’ might plummet onto the men below. Knowing that ‘another second and the whole heat would have poured down upon them’, the workers were surprised when ‘one among them – whom no one could remember having seen before – appeared to assume the proportions of a giant. Torso, shoulders, head, arms were magnified enormously and thrust upwards upon shaft-like legs to tower above the 50-ton ladle as if it had been a saucepan. The giant grasped the great lips of the crack, and ground them together so at once the ladle was made whole again. Not a flash remained visible, not a spark of fluid steel overflowed.’ The men were delighted at their escape, but were then shocked to see that ‘the ladle was being moved along in normal fashion. There was no giant anywhere … Were they awake? Did they dream?’

In another incident, a train loaded with ingots broke loose and thundered down a slope towards some workers. Joe sprinted into view and – catching hold of train’s last car – pulled it back up the hill. On a different occasion, a barge full of workers on a river swollen with floodwater was hurtling towards the pier of a bridge. The workers spotted a large form swimming in the engorged river – a gigantic hand thrust up, grasped the barge’s prow and guided it to safety. Joe Magarac was also credited with protecting an office from a run-away cart of pig iron and saving a boy struck with vertigo, who – teetering on top of a ladder – was about to plunge into a furnace. After rescuing the youth, Joe – apparently – disappeared into vapour: ‘the whistle blew about that time … and … several of the men noticed … the steam rising from the whistle was very dense that day and seemed to remain longer in the air than usual.’

A particularly giant Joe Magarac in the US Steel comic Joe the Genie of Steel (1950)

The more exaggerated accounts of Joe Magarac do appear to see him as some sort of shapeshifter, almost a demi-god. One tale claimed he ‘was born of the mists that hover over the lakes and mountains of the “old country” and of the coal and iron of America. He is thus endowed with the strength of the earth but also with the elusiveness of the air. He is as large as the occasion demands but as fleeting as mist in the sun. He moves with the speed of light, rather, he seems to occupy whatever space he chooses without moving from spot to spot. He is at times the immovable body and at times the irresistible force. He appears in the midst of workmen taxed beyond their powers and with an effortless push or lift overcomes their difficulties; only, when they look around to see who has helped them, Joe Magarac is nowhere to be found.’

Joe was indeed known to assist when shifts had fallen behind, labouring alongside workers to help them catch up. Some say he did this to save his colleagues’ jobs, others that it was a patriotic act to keep steel flowing during wars. Once, to meet a staggering surge of demand, Joe put in a yearlong shift, working 365 straight 24-hour days. Some tales, though, do show Joe as somewhat more human. In his scant spare time, he was said to enjoy polka dancing and eating halushki (fried cabbage with egg noodles).

Like most tales of heroes, the legends of Joe Magarac usually end with Joe’s death. Most have Joe’s work rate being so incredible that his steelworks and nearby mills have to close for a few days due to overproduction. After this enforced time off, Joe’s fellow workers – or his boss in some versions – return to find Joe, unable to stand the idleness, melting himself down in a Bessemer furnace. Respecting his wishes, they let him sink into the molten metal and the steel produced from Joe’s body is the best ever made. Some say it was used to build a new mill, meaning even more steel could be churned out and more workers given jobs. But, as with many mythological heroes, there are those who refuse to accept Joe has truly died. Some assert he lives on in the girders created from his body, with his spirit infused into the buildings and bridges they helped construct. Others maintain he didn’t die at all and that he’s living in an abandoned steel mill waiting for production to restart.

But where did the legends of Joe Magarac come from? Were they really born out of the everyday experiences of steelworkers or were they helped into existence by the midwifery of professional writers? Is there any flavour of the ‘old country’ in the legends, are they rather based on ‘grand universal myths’ or might they be pieces of ‘genuine’ American folklore? Or are they just ‘fakelore’ with roots no deeper than the imaginations of short story authors, comic book creators and advertising executives? And how does Joe compare to other superhuman American worker-heroes like the lumberjack Paul Bunyan, the cowboy Pecos Bill, the sailor Old Stormalong and the tunneller John Henry?

What did Pittsburgh’s steelworkers really think of Joe Magarac? Was he seen as a saviour and hero or as a gullible idiot or even traitor to the working class? Was he an object of ridicule, of admiration or of sympathy? Was he an emblem of the nobility of labour or a personification of the alienation, overwork, xenophobia, exploitation, unrealistic demands and dangers of accidents and even death that immigrant steelworkers regularly faced? Was he a figure celebrated by the capitalist right or socialist left? Was he perhaps all these things and less and more? And does Joe still have relevance in a post-industrial epoch or is his legacy rusting away like the skeleton of an abandoned factory?

Read on for tales of naïve failed scriptwriters, of invisible donkeys’ ears, of the lassoing of tornadoes, of corrupt politicians and anti-immigrant tirades sparking rampages through Washington, of metal men in Serbian folktales, of garish amusement park sculptures, and of strikers and private armies engaging in gunboat battles on America’s waterways.

A Failed Scriptwriter Commits the Outlandish Tales of Joe Magarac to Print

The earliest trace of Joe Magarac, at least in print, comes from a November 1931 article in Scribner’s magazine – The Saga of Joe Magarac, Steelman – by one Owen Francis. Somewhere between a journalistic write-up and short story, Francis’s article first introduces the legend of Joe Magarac then narrates Joe’s life and adventures in Francis’s approximation of a ‘Hunkie’ accent. ‘Hunkie’ was a slightly derogatory term for Eastern and Central European migrants, a term which could encompass Hungarians, Serbs, Croats and Slovaks. (The name probably derives from the fact these distinct ethnicities once lived in the Kingdom of Hungary, a semi-autonomous part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire).

Owen Francis had been an aspiring screenwriter and author of short stories. He began his working life in the steel mills of the Pittsburgh area before fighting in World War I. After recovering from exposure to poison gas, he attended the University of California then tried to make it in Hollywood. His Hollywood efforts, however, led to disappointment and he moved back to Pennsylvania, once more taking a job in the steel industry. He supervised groups of ‘Hunkies’ and – disgruntled by his lack of Hollywood success and disillusioned with the film world’s faux sophistication – found himself taking an interest in these marginalised immigrants. His attitude towards them was both affectionate and patronising. The Hunkie, Francis felt, instinctively ‘understood life’ and was ‘the best worker within our shores’. In addition to ‘working for a considerable number of years with a Hunkie on my either side’, Francis claimed to have eaten with them and spent ‘many evenings in their homes’. During these times, Francis asserts, he heard lots of curious stories about a ‘Mr Joe Magarac’.

Francis’s fascination with such matters began when he ‘often heard many of the Slavs who worked in the mills call one of his fellow workers magarac’. Aware that ‘literally translated the word magarac meant jackass’, Francis ‘questioned my Hunkie leverman as to its meaning as understood by Hunkie workers. He gave me a vivid explanation.’

A magarac was, apparently, a labourer who – donkey-like – was content to do nothing but work hard and eat: ‘Magarac! Dat is man who is joost lak jackass donkey. Dat is mans what joost lak eatit and workit, dats all.’

To illustrate his point, the leverman jabbed his finger ‘towards another of his race, a huge Hunkie by the name of Mike’ and yelled, ‘Hay! Magarac!’ Immediately, ‘Mike’s thumbs went to his ears, and with palms outspread his hands waved back and forth while he brayed lustily in the best imitation of a donkey he could give.’

‘See,’ my leverman said, ‘dere is magarac. Dat is Joe Magarac for sure.’

The leverman and Mike then ‘both laughed and spoke in their mother tongue, which I did not understand.’ You might think that to be called a donkey is an insult, but Owen Francis believed ‘from the tone of voice and the manner in which it was used, that it was seldom used derisively.’

According to Francis, the mythical figure of Joe Magarac was ‘a man living only in the imagination of the Hunkie steel mill worker. He is to the Hunkie what Paul Bunyan is to the woodsman and Old Stormalong is to the men of the sea. With his active imagination and childlike delight in tales of greatness, the Hunkie has created stories with Joe Magarac as the hero that may in the future become the folklore of our country … (Magarac) belongs to the mills as do the furnaces and the rollers.’ Francis argued that the Hunkie ‘has created a character and woven about him a legend which admirably fits the environment in which he, the Hunkie, has been placed. Basically, the stories of Joe Magarac are as much a part of the American scene as steel itself.’

A rather blissful-looking Joe Magarac melts himself down on the front of Boys’ Life – the monthly magazine of the Boy Scouts of America

In Francis’s narration of the Joe Magarac legend, Joe first appears during the weight-lifting contest for the hand of Mary Mestrovich. He easily picks up the heaviest bar – which no one else can lift even an inch off the ground – and ties it into a knot. After being asked in amazement what kind of man he is, Joe pulls off his shirt to show that ‘all over he was steel … steel hands, steel body, steel everything.’ Joe declares, ‘Me, I was born inside ore mountain many years ago. To-day, I comit down from mountain in ore train and was over in ore pile by blast furnace.’

Joe moves into Mrs Horkey’s guest house, telling his landlady, ‘I no wanit room, joost five big meals a day, dats all, for I workit night turn and day turn all at the same time.’ Joe gets a job in the mill, where ‘he go sit in furnace door, with fires from furnace licking round chin’. He stirs the steel with his hands ‘while she was cookit’, scoops up big handfuls of molten metal which he dumps into moulds, and ‘he makit rails. Eight rails at a time, four by each hands … squeeze ’em out from fingers.’ The mill soon has to suspend work due to this overproduction so Joe sits in a ladle of molten steel and melts himself down. He’s then rolled out, chopped up and – having turned himself into the ‘best steel what was ever made’ – he’s used to construct ‘the best mills for sure … dat is why when somebody call Hunkie magarac he only laughit and feel proud as anything.’

Francis wrote, ‘The saga of Joe Magarac is more typical of the Hunkie than any tale or description I might write. It shows his sense of humour, his ambitions, his love of his work: a good-natured, peace- and home-loving worker.’

Owen Francis’s tale of Joe Magarac proved popular, but – as Magarac had supposedly sprung out of the organic folklore of migrant steelworkers – Francis couldn’t claim ownership of the character and other creatives soon embellished the Magarac myth. Over the next twenty or so years, Joe Magarac would appear in short stories, comics, poems, novels, paintings, murals, songs and advertisements. He’d become as much a part of the mythic American landscape as Pecos Bill – the gigantic cowboy said to have created the Gulf of Mexico by lassoing a storm cloud – and Paul Bunyan, a superhuman lumberjack who formed 10,000 Minnesota lakes with his footprints.

Joe Magarac plays pat-a-cake with white hot steel in a Shell Oil ad from 1953

Francis stressed the Americanness of Joe Magarac, stating, ‘Although the stories of Joe Magarac are sagas, they have no tangible connection, so far as I have been able to find, with the folklore of any of the countries which sent the Hunkies to these United States.’ But is this entirely true or might the Joe Magarac legends indeed reflect tales brought over from Europe or patterns of myth widely known to humankind? Or, to go to the other extreme, might – rather than having deep roots in Europe’s soil or in the bedrock of the collective consciousness – the stories of Joe Magarac have roots that don’t penetrate further than the minds of over-excitable writers and even corporate or political propagandists? Let’s find out below.

Miraculous Births, Sacrificial Deaths, Metal Men and Frogs – Might Joe Magarac Derive from European Folktales and Universal Hero Myths?

It could perhaps be argued that Joe Magarac’s unusual birth, heroic deeds and untimely sacrificial death follow common patterns of hero myths, encapsulated in ideas put forward by thinkers such as Joseph Campbell, Otto Rank, Lord Raglan and David Adams Leeming. The hero is often not conceived or born in the normal way, perhaps – for instance – being sired by a god on a mortal woman. Little is then known about his childhood and youth, but as an adult – often as a young man – he performs miraculous actions and incredible feats. The hero’s death is also often unusual – he might die while still quite young and the death might be voluntary and sacrificial. But many think such a demise is not a real death or at least not final. The hero may not have a tomb or the tomb could turn out to be empty. He might resurrect himself, ascend from the underworld or somehow live on, perhaps planning to return one day to help his people.

An example of such a hero would be Jesus Christ. Christ was born of a virgin, his birth was marked by strange signs, and information is scant concerning his childhood and youth. After several years of teaching and performing miracles, he died, voluntarily on the cross, as a sacrifice for others, but then overcame death via the Resurrection, leaving his tomb vacant. King Arthur too came into the world in an unconventional manner, conceived thanks to Merlin’s trickery. It’s said Arthur lies in slumber rather than death and that he’ll come back when England really needs him. Several Greek demi-gods were conceived by deities on mortal woman, enjoyed immense strength and superhuman powers, and managed to visit the underworld and ascend out of it again. Might Joe Magarac – with his miraculous birth, his childhood hidden away in a furnace, his acts of superhuman strength, his voluntary and sacrificial death, his living on in the steel he created and his promise to reappear one day – fit at least some of these common patterns?

A hero winning a maid’s hand in marriage via some test of strength or skill is also a widespread folklore motif. In order to marry Princess Iole, Heracles was obliged to beat the king’s sons in an archery contest. In the Welsh collection of myth the Mabinogion, the hero Culhwch has to complete 40 impossible-sounding tasks before he can wed a giant’s daughter. Tales of marriages celebrated after such trails can be found in the areas the Hunkies originated from. Several stories in the collection gathered by the Serbian linguist and curator of folksongs and folktales Vuk Karadzic (1787-1864) have a marriage-seeking hero outwitting a girl’s father or even the girl herself.

In Joe Magarac’s weight-lifting competition, though, rather than claiming the beautiful maiden, Joe steps aside and lets her marry someone else. There are, however, folktales in which this happens, including one of Karadzic’s called The King and the Shepherd. After a shepherd defeats a king in a contest of cleverness, he demands his bride and as ‘the king saw no way out of the situation … he gave the girl to the shepherd.’ The shepherd then surprises everyone by surrendering the maiden ‘to the rich man, who in exchange rewarded him with immeasurable treasure.’

Another of Karadzic’s tales that may have some vague influence on the Joe Magarac legends is The Man of Iron. The tale’s hero – the youngest son of a king – is saddled with the misfortune of being married to a frog. This amphibian later turns out to be a beautiful woman, which makes his mother the queen jealous. In revenge, the queen persuades the king to give her son arduous tasks. These the prince accomplishes with the help of his brother-in-law, who – still presumably in frog form – lives in a nearby well. After overcoming two tricky challenges, the prince is summoned to his father, who says, ‘I hear you brag about being able to bring the iron man.’ The young man protests that he’s never made such claims, but the king vows that if his son doesn’t present him with this fearsome being, he’ll forfeit his head. The prince’s wife urges him to go to the well and beg his brother-in-law’s aid. The brother-in-law merely answers, ‘I’ll be up in a moment, but don’t be scared or petrified.’

Suddenly the prince sees the iron man right in front of him and ‘Oh, he was tall and frightening.’ The iron man heads to the king’s castle, dragging a mace ‘with which he ploughed the land, leaving a trail behind as if eight strong oxen had ploughed instead.’ Seeing the iron man approaching, the king rushes into the fortress, bolting all the doors and fleeing to the top of the tallest tower. The iron man, however, opens each door with one punch. Reaching the tower-top chamber, he demands to know why the king has sent for him but the monarch is too terrified to speak. The iron man punches the king on the forehead, the king falls down dead and the iron man – who turns out to be the prince’s frog brother-in-law – places the prince and his wife on the throne. The two reign happily for the rest of their lives.

Another aspect of European folklore that bears similarities to tales of outlandish American heroes like Joe Magarac, Paul Bunyan and Pecos Bill is the folklore of giants. Giants are often credited with establishing unusual landscape features. In Cornwall, for instance, the large boulders that scatter Mounts Bay are said to have been left after a fight between two giants and the shingle spit Loe Bar – which separates the freshwater Loe Pool from the ocean – is reputed to have been formed from a bag of sand the demonic giant Jan Tregeagle dropped while wading across an estuary. In addition to creating the Gulf of Mexico, Pecos Bill is said to have carved out the Rio Grande with a stick. It’s claimed Paul Bunyan created the Grand Canyon by pulling his axe behind him and the volcano Mount Hood by putting stones on his campfire.

While there’s no direct evidence connecting Joe Magarac with specific European folktales, it’s likely that the ‘Hunkie’ immigrants would have had at least some knowledge of the folklore of their regions. It’s not beyond the frontiers of probability that folktales and ‘universal myths’ may have at least given them elements out of which new stories could be conjured to suit a very different environment to the one they’d grown up in.

That’s one possibility, but there’s also the possibility that the accounts of Joe Magarac are what’s known as ‘fakelore’. Owen Francis may have distorted and embellished the Hunkies’ tales so much they lost all serious claims to be genuine legends, Francis may have made the stories up entirely, or the Hunkies themselves might have simply invented them to please or fool him.

Was Joe Magarac a Creation of ‘Fakelore’?

‘Fakelore’ may be defined as manufactured or otherwise artificial folklore masquerading as authentic tradition. The term ‘fakelore’ was created in 1950 by the American folklorist Richard M. Dorson (1916-81). Fakelore can refer to both stories that are completely invented and to folklore which is massively rewritten or reworked to appeal to contemporary tastes. With a purist zeal, Dorson spoke of a ‘battle against fakelore’ and soon had some of America’s favourite heroes in his sights.

One of the best-known characters savaged by Dorson’s pen was the cowboy Pecos Bill. Tales of Pecos Bill entered popular American culture thanks to short stories written by Edward S. O’Reilly. O’Reilly’s stories were first published in 1917 in The Century Magazine then reprinted in a book in 1923 called the Saga of Pecos Bill. O’Reilly had claimed his tales were based on the oral legends of cowboys who’d ventured west to settle Texas, New Mexico and Arizona. Dorson, however, asserted that O’Reilly had simply made Pecos Bill up and that later writers had then added to and embellished the giant cowboy’s escapades. (Motifs from myths and folktales do, however, have a habit of finding their way into works of art and literature as well as cropping up in ‘genuine’ folklore.)

Pecos Bill, the cowboy hero of American ‘fakelore’, lassos a tornado – a feat which led to the formation of the Gulf of Mexico. (Photo: Maroonbeard)

Dorson took on another American icon – the lumberjack Paul Bunyan. Unlike Pecos Bill, there’s evidence Paul Bunyan started life in stories lumberjacks told in the Great Lakes region and it’s been suggested these stories may be ultimately based on Bon Jean, a character in French-Canadian folklore. Still, Dorson regarded Paul Bunyan as a ‘pseudo-folk hero of 2oth-century mass culture’, arguing that popular perceptions of Bunyan bore little resemblance to the original folkloric figure. Tales of Bunyan became widely known thanks to a number of stories by William B. Laughead (1882-1958), an ad writer working for the Red River Lumber Company. These stories were published in a promotional pamphlet the company put out in 1916.

Dorson complained that the popularisers of folklore tended to turn it into something stereotypical and quaint whereas the authentic stories were often ‘repetitive, clumsy, meaningless and obscene’. The original Paul Bunyan tales had been full of logging jargon, which would make them hard for anyone not working in the industry to understand. Bunyan had been shrewd and sometimes downright dishonest, in one story tricking his men out of their wages. Dorson claimed the version of Bunyan found in mass culture had been sanitised with a ‘spirit of gargantuan whimsy (that) reflects no actual mood of lumberjacks.’ The poet and essayist Daniel G. Hoffman added that the Bunyan legends had become tools of capitalists, stating, ‘This is an example of the way in which a traditional symbol has been used to manipulate the minds of people who had nothing to do with its creation.’ Laughead may have been responsible for increasing Bunyan’s proportions from exceptionally tall and strong but still human-like to those of a being who towered over trees and casually created landmarks. He also seems to have endowed Bunyan with a pet blue ox named Babe, which nowadays the cartoonish Bunyan is rarely depicted without.

Statue of Paul Bunyan and Babe in Klamath, California (Photo courtesy of Bluemike)

Another colourful American character accused of being sculpted by fakelore is the gigantic sea captain Old Stormalong. Though legends of Old Stormalong have been traced to African American folksongs from the 1830s and 1840s, the more outlandish tales about him – such as his ship being so big its masts nearly reached the moon – may have originated in books and pamphlets published in the 1930s. Other ‘fakelore’ characters include the Swedish American plainsman and cloudbuster Febold Feboldson – possibly created by a lumber salesman in the 1920s in Gothenburg, Nebraska – and Annie Christmas, a super-strong, African American keelboat captain.

So might Joe Magarac be fakelore, created solely – or mainly – by the pen of Owen Francis? In 1953, Hyman Richman of the New York Folklore Quarterly interviewed Slovakian steelworkers and found that most of them had never heard of Joe Magarac. The writer Stephanie Misko – upon interviewing her Slovakian grandfather and uncles, who’d worked in steel mills in the 1930s – also drew a blank. In Joe’s defence, it might be said that he was likely to be a Croatian legend rather than a Slovakian one as magarac means donkey in the Croat and Serb languages and the surnames in the Joe Magarac stories are Croatian. Also, references to some sort of man of steel – though not specifically Joe Magarac – have apparently been found in newspapers dating back to the 1890s and in records of oral traditions stretching back to the same decade. There’s also Pittsburgh’s famous Manchester Bridge, a steel (of course) structure spanning the Allegheny River that opened in 1915 and was demolished in 1970. The bridge featured four sculptures of iconic American figures, one a steelworker said to be Joe Magarac. I haven’t been able to discover if this figure was originally intended to be Joe Magarac or if Joe’s name became attached to it later, though if the statue was always thought of as Joe it would date the legend to before Francis’s storytelling.

Pittsburgh’s Manchester Bridge featuring the steelworker Joe Magarac (left). The figure on the right is the legendary miner Jan Volkanik.

It might also be said that the whole notion of ‘fakelore’ has come under criticism in recent decades. Rather than believing in a ‘pure’ and ‘authentic’ folklore that has to be sought out, scholars have argued that art and media on the one hand and folklore on the other are continually influencing one another. This process, many assert, should be studied rather than attacked. Dorson recognised this influence, but saw it negatively, feeling the embellishments of writers and advertisers ‘hopelessly muddied’ the very lore that had inspired them. The anthropology professor Jon Olson, however, heard Bunyan stories growing up thanks to lumber industry advertising and said of them: ‘The point is that I was personally exposed to Paul Bunyan in the genre of a living oral tradition, not of lumberjacks (of who there are precious few remaining), but of the present people of the area.’ Fakelore, according to such a train of argument, does have the potential to morph into folklore again.

But let’s – for the moment – assume that the Joe Magarac legends weren’t completely concocted by Owen Francis but were neither a generations-old tradition among immigrant steel workers in and around Pittsburgh. Let’s assume that Francis really did hear stories about Joe Magarac from the ‘Hunkies’ he worked alongside, but that such tales were very recent creations, invented perhaps as a joke to trick the gullible American foreman or as a means of venting the workers’ frustrations. What might such stories then reveal about immigrant steelworkers and the conditions they laboured and lived under?

Did Joe Magarac Personify the Difficult, Dangerous and Degrading Conditions in Pittsburgh’s Steel Mills?

For more than a century, the Pittsburgh area was the epicentre of US steelmaking. The great steel magnate Andrew Carnegie established his massive steel conglomerate in the region and Pennsylvanian steel was used in iconic American structures like the Golden Gate Bridge and Empire State Building. But such structures were reared on the toil of hundreds of thousands of workers, including the ‘Hunkie’ immigrants who poured into Pittsburgh to meet the mills’ gargantuan appetite for low-skilled labour.

Life for the Hunkies was tough. They tended to be given dirtier, more monotonous and more dangerous work than American employees. They also faced worse treatment than immigrants from North Western European nations like Ireland, Britain, Holland, Germany and the Scandinavian countries, as migrants from these places were viewed as less ‘foreign’. The Hunkies laboured 12-hour days at just 15 cents an hour, significantly below the $3 a day that was considered a living wage at the time. The men often worked six or seven days a week and every fortnight there was a gruelling ‘swing shift’ – meaning they worked 24 straight hours due to the shifts swapping over. The work was hot and exhausting and accidents were frequent. One study showed that between July 1906 and June 1907 there were 195 work-related deaths in Pittsburgh and 526 in Allegheny County. The Hunkies’ scant time off was also far from comfortable. They tended to live in dingy lodging houses in poor, polluted and dangerous neighbourhoods and – if they had children – their families might be crammed into just a small room. Prospects of promotion were few, as advancement tended to be offered to American-born workers and migrants from less ‘exotic’ countries.

Immigrant steelworkers in the Pittsburgh area after finishing work

It’s easy to see how the figure of Joe Magarac might have emerged from such a situation. Joe is, however, unlikely to have been viewed as a hero by the workers who created him. He appears more to have been born out of bitterness, black humour, self-pity and sarcasm and to have been an ironic statement on their lives. Joe – like them – puts in long, often 24-hour shifts. His death by melting in the furnace or ladle could represent both the frequency of accidents and the idea that the workers were forced – metaphorically and sometimes literally – to sacrifice their lives to the mills. Indeed, Joe’s end could well have been a satirical comment on the absurd levels of dedication bosses expected. As for the weightlifting contest, Joe’s turning down of Mary’s hand could be making the point that the steelworkers barely had time for their families. Joe Magarac might also be a sardonic take on how the Hunkies felt others viewed them – as labouring beasts content with food, work and the poorest wages and living conditions. And – if they weren’t donkeys – they might just as well have been made of steel, fused with the very stuff they spent such long hours producing and the mills they manufactured it in.

There’s also Joe Magarac’s name. Francis seems to have been very wrong in his notion it was seldom meant as an insult. Richman found during his research that ‘the word magarac is rarely used without a sneer’ and Croatian dictionaries define a magarac as ‘an ignorant person’ or ‘one committing stupid acts and flippancies, a stupid unintelligent person, a foolish idiot … (and a) stubborn obstinate person.’ It’s difficult to imagine any hero in an English-speaking country going by the name of Joe Jackass.

Joe’s surname might also imply the mule-like strength and incredible stamina that – as the researcher Jack Santino found – some workers’ stories praise. The same tales can, however, caution workers against overdoing it or trying to work too quickly. Like Joe Magarac, such over-dedicated employees usually face a sad end. Another American worker-hero is the semi-mythical John Henry, an African American rail constructor who – during the building of a tunnel – engaged in a race against a new steel drilling machine using just his hand drill. Though John won, his efforts caused him to die of exhaustion. ‘Hammer songs’ – sung by labourers as they toiled – sometimes featured the legend of John Henry and warned against working too fast with lines like: ‘This old hammer killed John Henry, but it won’t kill me’. Men who violated the pace of the work by going too quickly tended to be shunned. Joe Magarac’s over-commitment to work is also mocked in his turning down of a beautiful wife in order to dedicate himself to his badly paid, unpleasant job and Joe even kills himself just because he has to stop working for a few days. It’s possible that – due to a process of linguistic and cultural misunderstanding – Owen Francis, with his sunny American outlook, didn’t comprehend his workers’ deadpan European humour and deep black sarcasm and totally misinterpreted the significance of magarac. A later story – Legend in Steel (1944) by George Carver – deals with Joe’s embarrassing last name by calling him ‘Magerac’. Carver also felt the need to comment that Joe’s surname ‘has no significance as far as I could learn.’ (The incidents of Joe saving other workers mentioned above are taken from Carver’s story and may, therefore, be later additions to the Magarac legend.)

Fears of overwork and unreasonable demands were perhaps understandable in an era influenced by approaches like Taylorism, Scientific Management and the Efficiency Movement. These schools of thought attempted to boost productivity by analysing the behaviour of workers down to the minutest detail. The management guru Frederick Taylor (1856-1915) – who began his career in the steel industry – would time workers with stop watches and observe the movements of their bodies in order to make sure the maximum effort and efficiency would be squeezed out of them. He also believed in selecting ‘first class men’ who had the motivation and energy for especially hard labour and paying them slightly more.

Taylor even came up with his own semi-mythical worker, a Dutchman named Schmidt, who he claimed he was able to get to carry 47 tons of pig iron a day instead of his previous 12 tons. Though Schmidt was based on a real worker, Taylor’s depictions of the Dutchman – as with the tales of Joe Magarac – seem to have been honed over the years. As Taylor’s influence spread, more Schmidts were selected in steelworks and factories, leading to resentment about the speed of work and maybe a little ethnic conflict as Hunkies were less likely to be singled out in this way. Perhaps the Croats and Serbs couldn’t resist calling the Schmidts of their workplaces the (unintelligible to them) insult of magarac.

All this has led some left-leaning writers to see Joe Magarac as not so much a workers’ hero but an anti-hero – a personification of how employers want their workers to be. The folklorists Gilley and Burnett (1998) state that a ‘magarac (a jackass) is someone that workers find to be an irrational super-worker.’ Joe Magarac could be an example of how a figure extolling values that are actually in opposition to the true interests of a group can be pushed onto that same group as a hero. For Gilley and Burnett, Joe Magarac was ‘the summation of what Capital asked for in its workers and not the hero of the working population.’

But did the myth of Joe Magarac represent only pro-capitalist interests or could the legend also be weaponised by the pro-worker left? Let’s see in the next section.

Joe Magarac – Tool of Capitalist Domination or Symbol of Worker Resistance?

The bosses of corporate America certainly embraced the imagery of Joe Magarac. A large mural of Joe can be found in the Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh, which was founded by Andrew Carnegie as one of his philanthropic gestures. In 1950-1, US Steel (which absorbed Carnegie’s companies) even put out two comics based on Joe’s exploits: Joe, The Genie of Steel and The Return of Joe the Genie of Steel. In a particularly thrilling scene from one of these publications, Joe appears in an adolescent boy’s dream to reveal to him the wonders of – the historical development of rail making. Joe featured in a Shell Oil advert in 1953 and was the subject of public murals and statues around Pittsburgh. He also – along with other ‘fakelore’ characters like Pecos Bill and Paul Bunyan – appeared in schoolbooks. Such figures – as well as being a useful way for busy teachers to get their pupils interested in subjects like history – promoted a ruggedly individualistic, hard-working and self-sufficient version of the American mythos.

Joe Magarac appears in the US Steel comic The Return of Joe the Genie of Steel (1951)

It’s hard not to view such portrayals of Joe Magarac as the epitome of the corporations’ idealised worker. Joe could almost be seen as a fantasy of the bosses – a labourer happy with his lot whose only desire is to toil for the company and whose only complaint is that he doesn’t always get to work as hard as he would like. Joe could represent the upper classes dealing with their guilt – admiring the ‘hardworking poor’ while conveniently forgetting they often have no choice but to submit to backbreaking labour. Joe Magarac could be seen as propagating the false idea that the system benefits all those involved in it rather than benefitting some enormously while disadvantaging others. Joe’s suicide even helps tackle the recurring capitalist problem of overproduction versus slack market demand. This part of the legend, it could be argued, promotes the notion that workers shouldn’t complain if they suddenly find themselves surplus to requirements. Joe might even be viewed as a martyr who’s ultimately of more value to the corporation dead than when alive. Gilley and Burnett thought the US steel industry needed to promote an image of the ideal worker as content and uncomplaining to guarantee the sector’s economic security.

But there’s also evidence the myths of Joe Magarac could be turned around. There were apparently tales – perhaps union-instigated – of Joe participating in industrial disputes like the Homestead Rebellion of 1892 and the Great Steel Strike of 1919. The man of steel was said to have walked the picket lines, fighting strike breakers and Pinkerton thugs. The Homestead Rebellion – a dispute, in the town of Homestead near Pittsburgh, between the Amalgamated Association of Iron and Steel Workers (AA) and the Carnegie Steel Company – was an especially dramatic conflict. Triggered by attempts to drop wages by 22% and break the power of the AA, the dispute saw workers locked out of plants, plants which were soon protected with high barbed-wire fences, sniper towers, searchlights and water cannons (some of which could spray boiling hot liquid).

The AA – along with another union, the Knights of Labour – soon called a strike. Determined to keep the mills closed, the unions patrolled the Monongahela River with a steam-powered launch and rowboats and organised men into military-style units. 24-hour picket lines were thrown up around the town and plant and strangers were questioned to make sure they weren’t strike breakers. The company, meanwhile, hired 300 security guards from the Pinkerton Agency, who attempted to access the plant via the river. After a brief gun battle on the Monongahela, the Pinkertons tried to land, leading to more shots being exchanged. The strikers attempted to sink the Pinkertons’ barges with a brass canon before hurling dynamite at their boats and even sending burning ships in their direction. This last action prompted some of the less experienced Pinkertons to plunge into the river to try to swim away. The Pinkertons surrendered and were captured, but the town was eventually taken by the Pennsylvania Militia. Strike breakers were brought in, production was restarted and the unions had to back down. For most of strike, however – at least until it had almost reached the point of collapse – the Eastern European workers were supportive participants. These were the same workers who writers like Owen Francis would characterise as passive ‘donkeys’.

A satirical cartoon depicting Andrew Carnegie, holding a whip and sitting on bags of money during the 1892 Homestead Rebellion

Writers and artists on the left weren’t afraid to use the persona of Joe Magarac to make political points. One of the most famous pictures of Joe – showing a laughing, blond-haired Magarac casually bending a red-hot bar of steel in front of a smoking industrial plant and crowd of amazed onlookers – was painted in 1946 by one William Gropper. Gropper had far-left sympathies, which were likely fuelled by the death of his aunt in an avoidable fire at the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory in New York in 1911, a tragedy in which 146 garment workers perished. In its description of the painting, New York’s Grey Art Gallery highlights how the ‘massive size’ of the steel mill is ‘diminished by Magarac’s hulking display of will’ and states that the picture ‘affirms in no uncertain terms the value of the working man’s spirit in post-war America.’

Joe Magarac (1946) by the left-wing artist William Gropper

Another curious take on the Joe Magarac legend was the 1948 children’s novel Joe Magarac and his US Citizenship Papers by Irwin Shapiro. In Shapiro’s story, Magarac’s bosses realise his unusual birth in the iron ore mountain presents a bureaucratic obstacle to him acquiring American citizenship. A crooked manager tells him that this problem could be smoothed over if he slips a politician a $1,000 bribe so Joe works a marathon shift to earn the money. When the promised payment doesn’t appear, Joe melts himself down in a furnace and becomes a girder, which is used to reinforce the Capitol Building in Washington DC. In this form, Joe overhears congressmen making disparaging remarks about Hunkie immigrant workers as well as about migrants and workers in general. Magarac – furious at this bigotry – morphs back into a steel man and goes on a rampage across Washington. The removal of Joe’s girder means the Capitol soon crumbles. The army is called out, but even their guns and tanks can’t deal with the enraged steel giant. Joe’s only appeased when a delegation of politicians apologise for their slighting of working people and the president personally presents him with his citizenship papers. Restored to his amiable and easy-going self, Joe dances the Polka and returns to Pittsburgh to resume work in the mills.

A scene from the 1948 children’s novel Joe Magarac and his Citizenship Papers

Irwin Shapiro was a writer and translator who – with a Magarac-like work ethic – churned out over 80 books. Shapiro’s wife, Edna Richter, was involved in the American Federation of Government Employees union and Shapiro and Richter were, according to their son, ‘both deep in the Party’. (Meaning the Communist Party though both renounced any pro-Soviet sympathies after events like the Great Purge and Hitler-Stalin Pact). Shapiro’s brother-in-law worked for the United Auto Workers and was summoned before the government’s anti-communist House Un-American Activities Committee.

So Joe Magarac – like many symbols of folklore and, indeed, fakelore – was an ambiguous and malleable character who – like steel itself – could be bent, moulded and recast for a variety of purposes. The big man of steel could be used by very different people with very different aims. But what of Joe Magarac today? Is there any place for the metal giant in a Pittsburgh where the steel industry has largely vanished or has Joe Magarac melted himself down for the last time and quietly trickled away from the popular consciousness and folk memory?

Joe Magarac’s Legacy in a Pittsburgh Devoid of Steel Mills

Due to deindustrialisation, there are no steel mills left now in Pittsburgh though a few small mills linger on in the surrounding area. How, though, has the city’s man of steel fared now the works so closely linked to his legend are no more? Joe Magarac is, perhaps surprisingly, still a common sight around Pittsburgh. The sculpture of Magarac from the old Manchester Bridge is preserved in a park on Pittsburgh’s North Side while another Magarac statue – bending a bar of steel – stands in Pittsburgh’s amusement park Kennywood Park. Over 30 murals of Joe Magarac are dotted around downtown Pittsburgh.

Joe Magarac now seems to have lost any hint of his ‘donkey’ status and has become a symbol of a vanished industry and a reminder of the dignity of those who worked in it. He’s also an icon to cling to in the difficult times deindustrialisation has brought – times of low wages, insecure lower-skilled jobs and unemployment that often contrast unfavourably with the better wages and conditions the steelworkers eventually managed to win. Doris Dyen, from the Pittsburgh Rivers of Steel National Heritage Area, believes, ‘In the wrenching process of the steel industry’s precipitous declining, Joe Magarac has become immensely important to displaced workers, whose self-esteem and sense of identity have been severely challenged.’

Stephanie Misko feels that ‘Joe Magarac symbolises a century of multi-cultural explosion and labour exploitation obscured by the Pittsburgh fog … A city known for its emphasis on the preservation of heritage, Pittsburgh is claiming its Slavic “hero” as their symbol of a difficult but cherished past.’

Sculpture of the mythical steelworker Joe Magarac, saved from the now-demolished Manchester Bridge. It now stands in a Pittsburgh park. (Photo: Croatia.org)

The folklore – or fakelore – of industrial areas can throw up some strange beings. In Glasgow – another centre of the steel industry – an iron-toothed vampire was rumoured to live in the city’s Southern Necropolis and haunt the Gorbals neighbourhood preying on children. The odd figure of Joe Magarac seems to have arisen from a combination of Eastern European legends and ‘universal archetypes’; ironic reflections by migrants on the toil, struggles and stereotyping they faced; the outpourings of a gullible American foreman and frustrated scriptwriter; and the willingness of both corporate interests and political radicals to seize on the figure created. The giant conjured out of all this, Joe Magarac, is likely to haunt the American consciousness for some time.

(This article’s main image – showing Joe Magarac outside the Edgar Thompson Works, Braddock – is courtesy of Seth Tisue)

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